Blunder Prone .... the Chess Blogger's History Channel

2011 Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial Tournament

2011-12-30T13:32:00.002-05:00

( A Preview of the Tournament report that will be published in the next issue of Chess Horizons.)

Two days before Massachusetts’s first prominent chess hero’s 139th birthday, 57 players gathered on December 3, 2011 in Leominster at the Veteran’s Center to play in the 2011 Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial. Why this is not listed as a Heritage event under USCF guidelines ( Tournaments Held for at least 25 years) is beyond me since I looked back on MACA’s tournament history for this event dates back to 1991 . Any records before that are archived with USCF.
In the world wide web, I have a chess blog ( blunderprone.blogspot.com and mirrored here at chess.com) that is heavy on the historical perspective of chess, it’s players and major events. When asked to do the tournament report for this event, I was honored and could not resist tying in a little colloquial historical perspective to this event.

Harry Nelson Pillsbury

Born on December 5th, 1872, he was only 22 when he went to Hastings in 1895 and turned the European chess world on its head as he won the event. He learned to play chess in 1888 at the age of 15. His first chess teacher was Addison Smith, a member of the Boston Chess Club who lived in Somerville.

He moved to Philadelphia by the time he started taking this game seriously at age 17 years old. Pillsbury creativity and resourcefulness started to show up in 1890. Pillsbury played a series of Evans Gambits with the veteran Baltimore expert, H.N. Stone. He was one of the inventors of the Stone-Ware defense in the Evans. Our Somerville native smashed him 5-2.

Like Fisher, his knowledge of openings showed his resourcefulness to garnish older variations with his own added twists. This was especially seen at Hastings 1895 where he played a couple Evans Gambits against Schiffers and Bird. He played a variation not seen in Europe since the days of Kieseritzky and Mayet ( 50 years earlier). Having trained with this variation from local American players H.N Stone and Addison Smith, he had an advantage over his European contemporaries.

Though our event held in 2011, didn’t attract the European power houses of the day, we did have local GM Alexander Ivanov and two prominent local IM’s David Vigorito and Igor Foygel among the notable players in attendance in the open section. It was a quick draw in the final round of the 21 player open section that ended with GM Ivanov and IM Vigorito tied for first place with 3.5 points. Masters Vadim Martirosov and Avraam PIsmennyy followed with a 3.0 score. I was hard pressed to collect any score sheets from these games as IM David Vigorito commented that he stopped recording the last 15 moves of one of his games because of the time control.

One game I collected was from a friend and fellow blogger on chess.com. Although local Expert, Robert King had not finished with any prize money, his final score of 2.5 points came after 1 win and 3 draws, one being against IM Foygel in Round 3. Below is the game he annotated. It appears, that IM Foygel has the spirit of Pillsbury as he plays an older line of the Benoni ( 3…e5) against Mr. King, transposing it to an old Indian defense.

The Under 1900 section had the largest attendance with 27 players. This was my rust breaker event as I had personal matters taking priority over my chess board. Lately, with life in all its complications, the only time I get to play chess is on a one day event. I used to loath such events because of the G60 time controls and how I needed all the time in the world against a much younger opponent brought up on bullet and lightning internet chess. But I have acclimated since my love for the game versus my time for the game are on two separate and seemingly opposing axis’s.

Given the G60 time control, it comes as no surprise then that an eleven year old, Nithin Kavi, was undefeated and won first place in the U1900 section. Yours truly came in a clear second, playing only the last three rounds. My last round game was a raucous Central variation of the Slav defense where Black chose to play a minor piece exchange for 3 pawns. Here is that game with my annotations.

The Under 1500 section had a total of 9 players and a three-way tie for first place from the Granite State as James Benway, Robert B Walton Jr, and Anson O’young all from New Hampshire, finished with 3 points each. I didn’t get a chance to collect any of these games from that section.

Playing 5.f3 against the Benko against an Expert

2011-12-23T17:29:00.001-05:00

I mentioned back in June how I was searching for a new way to handle the Benko Gambit and essayed an alternative that played 5.f3. Not preparing for this since June, I was able to play a decent and fun game against an opponent who was a strong class A/ Expert hovering around 2000 USCF.

My long term mnemonic recalled the dialog of not allowing Black’s queen Bishop to head to a6 with the line 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 and instead play 5.f3 to immediately reinforce e4. What I forgot was that playing 6.e4 is the strongest line following 5…e6. Here I mixed ideas up and decided to “spike” Black’s position with 6.d6!?

I remember watching a video on pawn formations with advanced d-chains and the cramping effect d6 could have if allowed. So I went for it. It created a series of forced moves and an early Q exchange as I scrambled to equalize development.

The middle game quickly transposed to an endgame. Before that could happen I wanted to make sure he couldn’t castle and allow my kind to get to the Queenside before he could. I entered into an endgame with a pawn deficit and N versus Bishop. I had a plan to blockade with my King and knight, get my pawns and pieces on dark squares and keep him busy.

It almost worked… but I fell for an exchange and ended up losing a drawn endgame.

What I learned:

1) 5.f3 against the Benko ( Volga) Gambit is fun. I reviewed a few of Max Dlugy’s games (Dlugy Versus Lev Albert 1986; Dlugy vs Zofia Polgar, 1987 and Dlugy versus Gurevich in 1988) realized that following up with 6.e4 is the critical line. Nakamura versus Vachier in 2008 also shows up on the data base.
2) Though the spike line is interesting and sort of in tune with a d-pawn chain, the game really is about e4 and setting up a tactical king side attack.
3) Develop with a vengeance
4) Big Endgame lesson with N Vs B:

a. Had the right approach in blocking with the opposite color of his Bishop

b. Wrong Passed pawn ( Queening square wrong color)

c. K and knight can hold against the extra bishop. If opposite King waltzes toward other pawns, knight can block passed pawn while king defends.

d. Don’t exchange pieces when down a pawn.

Game Mnemonics learned:

On all of the games mentioned in 1 above, Allowing Black to get his Queen bishop to b7 ( a8-h1 diagonal) comes at a price to Black with a weakened queenside and a brick pawn fortress at e4 f3 and g2. White gets lots of space on the Queen side. The games are less about subtle maneuvering, which I attempted, and more about sharp tactics with a space advantage. I am going to spend some time going over these games in more detail for my own sake. I hope next time I encounter the Benko, I can explore a little deeper beyond the 6.e4 line.

Taking off the Rust at the Pillsbury Memorial.

2011-12-11T15:45:00.002-05:00

Lately, with life in all its complications, the only time I get to play chess is on a one day event. I used to loath such events because of the G60 time controls and how I needed all the time in the world against a much younger opponent brought up on bullet and lightning internet chess. But I have acclimated since my love for the game versus my time for the game are on two separate and seemingly opposing axis’s. Time for two or three day events doesn’t fit in well with my busy schedule during school season as I teach part time.

That’s why the mnemonic memory training is important. With a little effort, I can now recall the basic tabias of my repertoire as well as some key middle game ideas based on the themes from pawn structures. This way, during a G60 gamer, I am not wasting time doubting my short term memory’s recall of move orders during the opening. I visualize a tabia I would like to reach, and prepare for the first branch away from that. Then when I am faced with the first branch, the ideas behind the pawn formations are handy to finding candidate moves. Its very efficient and maximizes my time for complex middle game positions. I found I had on average a 10 minute surplus over my opponent going into the middle game which afforded me the opportunity to complicate things on his time.

Now, where the rust was show was my tactical calculations and depth of analysis during the games. The following two games are embarrassments that I managed to get lucky. The first two games won’t go in for publication when I do the report. My last round game might.

The first game is an advanced C-K I played as Black against a teenager. He played a passive line that allowed me to free up the position. I took an unnecessary risk move 17…Nxd4. What I saw was the potential for pinning his knight ( after he recaptures) and winning back the piece with interest. Where my rust came in was that I missed the fact that White covered a key square (c5) as long as the knight on e4 remained. On a side note, IM Igor Foygel, walked by my game right when I made that move and winced. By the time he circled back around, my opponent didn’t play the strongest continuation and I was able to get what I had intended , my ROI of the material. Igor had that look of surprise. Two days later, he asked me “ Did you plan 17…Nxd4 ?” I knew I was busted, I remarked that I had chose the complicated line to take off some rust as I miscalculated White’s best move. Then he told me how some masters choose difficult lines on purpose in the first round to “wake up”. I like Igor, he’s a nice guy and very much encouraging for even us mortals.

The following round, the teenager’s dad was seeking to avenge his son’s demise at the hands of Blunderprone! Let me just comment that even at a USCF rating of 1890, he was 16 years out of practice in events. I had White and took him into a Botvinik line ( 6Bg5) of the Saemish variation of the KID with ease. This is a pawn structure I seem to be really comfortable with. Though I missed a subtle weakness on Black’s early e5 advance and could have played for a significant advantage had I played dxe4. But the long term memory KNEW the nuances of the more positional game of an advanced d-pawn chain formation over an open center with more tactical requirements. I think I chose correctly given the G60 event, and better recall of positional ideas of this variation. Black then proceeded to not challenge the Bishop on g5 and made a slow plan to advance f5. This allowed for White to complete development, castle long, and open the game up on the kingside. By this time I had a growing time surplus of 20 minutes and decided to complicate the game. Here I allowed myself to experiment with the idea of a temporal advantage ( two more pieces developed than my opponent) and sacrifice a couple pawns for a power play with pieces. One pawn opened up the King side for my pieces and the other deflected his strongest defending piece. He resigned after I snared his rook.

The last round, I was warmed up and played White against another minor. He played the slav, I challenged him into the central variation that puts the question to Black on giving up a Bishop for three pawns. I’ve had good success in the past with this line and its actually fun… as long as my tactical skills aren’t too rusty… so this was a big risk going into the last round. No guts no glory. Sure enough, my opponent remembered his moves right up until he was supposed to capture with the Bishop. Instead he captures with the knight. This avoided the other complications int eh main line. Black was able toe recover the 3 pawns for the knight but I was able to freeze his king in the center. I gave up a rook to gain initiative while I had the double bishops bearing on the centralized king, a centralized knight and Queen ready for action. Black was trying desperately to exchange Queens off the board, but I wanted it on my terms. I got my rook back which equalized material but gave me more active pieces going into a tricky endgame. Black suffered from cramps towards the last few moves as my boa constrictor started to squeeze in.

I am still working on the tournament report for the Pillsbury Memorial. I am collected some annotated games from some players in the top section. This will take some time. MY publication deadline is early January. I will post the article here on line. Until then, I am renewing my games studies with emphasis on expanding the mnemonic process. I will post on my first attempts next time.

How I rust proofed my training

2011-12-04T09:51:00.001-05:00

As indicated on my last few sparse posts, chess had taken a back seat as life challenges were my utmost top priority. Not that I am completely out of the woods, there is some clearing in my forest which has allowed be to jump in on a couple of recent one day events.

Back in September, I attended a one-day event in Rhodes Island where I ended up tied for first place. Since December 5^th marks the 139^th birthday of a famous Massachusetts player, the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial was an event I could not miss. My score of 3.5 had me take home a clear second place winnings as well as bump my rating up over 1800 USCF for the first time in my life.

I hadn’t been studying seriously since July. I hadn’t been playing regularly since then either. So how did I manage to have a couple of good tournaments and not lose rating points? I’m not entirely sure but I think I can explain.

For years, especially if look through the archives of my blog, I struggled with inconsistent results. As with most class players, I had a fairly good base of chess knowledge. Meaning, I had some theoretical understand, tactical ability and some base of positional understanding. The problem was that I was caught up in REMEMBERING move orders for openings and positional concepts. I call it the “If he goes here I go there” stuff. This process relied heavily on my short term memory and I am like an old computer from last century with only limited access. If I had life events, most of my deep lines were popped off the stack. My long term recall was hindered as I didn’t have a good “filing system” as it was all related to lines of move orders instead of better mnemonics.

Let me elaborate a little. I am sure all of us have struggled with opening preparation from time to time. It’s probably safe to say that most of us can probably remember at least the first 4 moves in our repertoire comfortably but once the branching effects of the various responses occur, we start to fall into move order issues or place pieces on squares without much thought as to why for the sole reason that you may have recalled it being placed there in another line. For me, the problem was trying to rely on a move like “7…Nbd7” as a mnemonic.

The other aspect is that once you get thrown off your horse, while the clock is ticking, how do you evaluate the position that you got yourself into? Where my previous training was based on move order and Kotov’s “tree of analysis” , too much reliance still on short term memory which was problematic. I read reams of various methods from Nimzovitch to Silman and tigers and zebras. There was no silver bullet and I proceeded as best I could depending on which topical positional book I read recently.

Tabias and pawn formations:

About a year ago, I started to really concentrate on using a better mnemonic to recall positional ideas. I knew I could not get around SOME level of memorization for opening preparation. I made it a priority to at least get myself to the point where I could recall the main line tabias of each of my openings. What this means is following the main line to the first MAJOR branching point. It meant resisting the urge to memorize anything further.

Once I got the tabias for each of my openings, I then approached UNDERSTANGING them from the perspective of pawn formations. If you look at my side bar, I have links to some of these. I created mnemonics from the pawn formations and filed the effort into long term memory after much practice. I made it a habit of reaching an early position and saying to myself the type of pawn formation. It’s not a perfect process as some pawn formations are easier to retrieve than others due to frequency I encounter them and other aspects. But when I see an IQP position, I KNOW what I need to do. I understand the goals. When I reach an ADVANCED CENTRAL QUEEN PAWN Chain, I also know what needs to be done and the candidate moves present themselves.

This year, I want to advance my understanding this game and try to apply mnemonic training to recall complete games. Yes, entire games. I believe I can continue down this path and recall master games by naming them like Pillsbury Vs Tchigoran Hastings 1895. The mnemonic will recall the initial tabia of the opening, the fact that Pillsbury played an early Ne5 ( as white) and proceeded with a Kingside “Pillsbury attack” as Tchigoran countered with a Queenside attack. I am not there yet, but just those statements starting with the top folder and opening up the subsequent folders of the position I draw visions of the game and could actually place pieces on a board to show them. Top level players have that ability. They set the bar I wish to reach.

And now I leave you with a parody of Alice Cooper’s song “ I’m 18”

I’m 18(hundred)

Lines form from my openings

Lines form from my positions

I’ve reached 1800 but not that much faster

I’m not a novice and I’m not a master

I’m 1800 and I still want a higher rating

I’m 1800 and I wish I got “master discounts”

I’m 1800 and I am a Class A player

I’m 18 18 1800!!!

Stay tuned, I'll be doing a formal tournament report for the Pillsbury Memorial for Chess Horizons and will post here as well.

My personal exchange sacrifice

2011-11-12T17:40:00.002-05:00

Life mirrors chess in more ways than you can imagine. However, life isn’t meant to be a game to start over if things don't turn out the way you'd like them. Rather, it requires proper attention to fully understand the position life tends to throw at you. My readers have been amply aware of my absence in the chess improvement blog community and I appreciate all the well wishers who reached out and really appreciate everyone’s understanding.

A certain series of events happened over the course of the summer starting around mother’s day concerning the most important people in my life. The perfect storm of events placed me in an untenable position where I had to chose one unfavorable solution over another and it was overwhelming.

To put it in a chess metaphor parlance, it was as if I had to exchange my queen for an unclear position in order to get out from under a very cramped situation. I’m making very careful moves as I settle into a new position which looks favorable for a minor piece assisting a pawn promotion (biological imperative overriding others). I hope to get my queen back as sometimes sacrifices are only temporary.

The dust is beginning to settle but I still have a great deal of work ahead of me. Chess is still calling me and I am barely staying afloat with occasional online games and rarer cameos at local OTB one day events. I still have that chess improvement story to complete and journey to blog. For now, it will remain a sporadic periodic update and possible chess musings. Someday, I will be back to the “time machine” and my magical history tour.

Until then, study your tactics, understand your positions, and above all, don’t sacrifice your queen for an unclear position unless you really know what you are doing.

-BP

Under constriction

2011-09-08T21:50:00.003-05:00

Sorry about the sudden lapse in posts. I am taking care of some tough personal matters and chess is far from them. Not sure when I'll be back.

Tuesdays with Bisguier

2011-07-24T10:44:00.004-05:00

Tuesday night is my chess club night. The Metrowest Chess Club in Natick, MA has a strong membership. The players range from all skill levels and on any Tuesday we have 80 players on a regular basis. Our club has been the home for some of the strongest players in the area ( though Boylston CC does seem to have the strongest top section.) It is also where Arthur Bisguier has settled in our area for a regular chess club and we are honored. This former US champion, 3 time winner of the US Open championships, interzonal contender for world championship plays folks like me on a regular basis at the young age of 81. A much more approachable GM than my recent experience with Jann Elvhest

Since the world open, I’ve been preoccupied and consumed with other pressing things outside of chess but I do take the time for once a week to attend this great chess club and take my lumps with these old lions. The second round in this month’s tournament had me paired against the former US champion. I hadn’t been practicing since my warm up to the world open and, like I said, an outside issue has me a little preoccupied. I played black against his 1.e4 and played a new line of the C-K advanced variation I’ve been trying to get a better grip on. I play 3…c5 which at fist looks stupid because it ends up like a French defense with a tempo down. But I forgot what I was trying to accomplish. At one point I thought of reverting back to a more standard line with 3…Bf5 but I told myself that the only to get better is to dive onto this variation and take my lumps against the strong players so it leaves a more lasting impression. And what in impression it left. Arthur’s remark was “ When you play the opening that poorly, you can’t expect too much.” I thought that was funny.

Here this crappy game. Yes, it’s not spectacular but I’m not afraid of showing some of my weaker games. I get a lot of good feedback from the comments and grow stronger from the experience.

Day four into the 39th World Open.

2011-07-03T15:22:00.001-05:00

Typically my performance at the past World Open events had me too nerved up in the first few rounds to pull off any wins until round 4 or 5. This year, it seems to be different. I am meditating just before each round and staying as centered as possibly knowing that my months of preparation is adequate to play some decent chess in the U1800 section of this major event.

Yes, it would be nice to win money. However, I see to many folks like myself before, all worked up and with r/e next to their names as they re-enter ( and pay even more money) to have a shot at the big prize. Not me…not this year.

My goal is just play some decent chess, have some fun and click my rating up 16 more points to reach my next milestone at 1800! I am well on my way. At the half way point I won 2 games and drew two games. I took a bye for the evening round 5 and spent the time with my wife and a night out on the town recuperating after a grueling 6 hour marathon game that ended in a draw.

The timing of the rounds is not good for someone who is used to eating at certain times of day. At about hour 5 into the Saturday marathon, I decided to buy a couple of hot dogs that were being offered by the hotel just outside the playing hall. These things were sitting around most of the day in lukewarm water way past freshness date. Needless to say, I awoke in the middle of the night, sick and sweating. Not a good start to day four. I was still peaked by the start of the round and my insides were raw. I suffered my first loss and it wasn’t pretty. I just wasn’t myself. The good news is that I had plenty of time to revive myself before the next round. Food poisoning is not fun at a chess event.

Enough of the unpleasant news, here are a couple of my earlier round victories. One is against a player by the name of Dragan and as my name is George… my patron saint is St. George the Dragon slayer! I won with a pawn mate! The second game I won because my opponent blundered away his queen. Been there done that.

That’s all for now, I thought I’d blog from the front lines. I am enjoying watching the “big games” Gata Kamsky , Elvhest, Lendermann and many others showed up for some chess. A quick note about Jann Elvhest. I was getting my usual breakfast sandwich at this corner market a block away from the hotel ( because its much better for the price than the over priced stale hotel offering) and ran into Jaan Elvhest. I say hi to him. He just looks at me, winces and looks back at the menu. Not a word from the grandmaster. Getting snubbed by a GM…I am so honored!

Gearing up for the World Open.

2011-06-26T13:39:00.002-05:00

When I tell my co-workers what I am about to do for vacation next week, the common response I get “ You call that a vacation?” For the uninformed, the American chess scene that lacks sponsorships like our European cou

nter parts, attracting the masses of amateurs with a hefty prize does draw a crowd. However, the time table is a grueling 6 hours per game at 2 games a day during the peak. So when they hear I am signing up for 12 hours a day while holding my head as if I am in agony staring at 64 squares and a few little wooden pieces scattered about, they tend to go “ I you say so”. I call that fun.

I’ve been ramping up my preparations for this event. Because I am not a big named GM nor am I any way near the level of play of a GM, I have no “second” helping me train. Rather, my “second” is of the silicon base and add to it a very good chess club that has strong players who I can get a “lesson” from when I play against them. I’ve shared some of those lessons recently.

What I’d like to share about is how I am using my “silicon second”. Years ago, I signed up for pieces of software called Bookup, spent the money they Mike Leahy updated the software on several occasions almost to the point where it annoyed me as the next version always meant “ for a little more money” . At one point I emailed him back and told him flat out “ look, I paid for this earlier version and I use it, I don’t want to have to pay more for something that does the same thing.”

Mike was very receptive to this feedback and provided me with the registration code for the new stuff with no strings attached. That was two years ago. I finally got over myself and installed the new version called Chess Opening Wizard.

First, I must say that I used to use it purely as a memory drill exercise putting the tool in “training” mode where I would select an opening and play through variation after variation without thinking too much. Problem with this is that I have a horrible memory to retain such rote responses. I needed to augment the learning experience by verbal queues. This led me to barking at my computer screen cursory positional values but it was somewhat successful. The problem was that the database I used would drill each variation down to the last move of the game before cycling to the next branch causing me to start and stop the training at various points.

Then, I discovered the feature of “speed learning” . The COW tool will take a starting position of your choice in your database and create a set of flash card like problems from that line. You can select how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, select whose side to move for the positions and voila! You have a canned batch of exercises specifically out of your repertoire! I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. I’ve been trying to do this with ChessBase but its so cumbersome. Mind you CB has its merits …much for another post later.

Mike Leahy has a nice chess improvement tool out there and he’s been doing this for quite a while. http://www.bookup.com/ It’s worth checking out the “light” versions to get an idea.

Baffled by the Benko

2011-06-19T11:45:00.004-05:00

Because I play 1.d4 with the White pieces, I am constantly challenged to recall a dozen or so different responses like QGD, QGA, Nimzo-Indian, King’s Indian, Grufeld, Benoni, Dutch, Pirc, etc… I try to find a “system” for my insanity and steer the game towards a familiar pawn structure or position I am somewhat comfortable with. For the most part, I have been able to steer most of the games to an advanced d5 pawn chain, a palatable IQP or a Minority attack.

The big exception, has been the Benko Gambit.

At the last World Open, I was prepared for most of the above variations against 1.4 except for the Benko because I hadn’t run into all that much at the club. I was out of my game early as I declined the gambit and tried like hell to steer it into a more familiar positional territory. After the game, Dan Heisman spoke with me and gave me sage advice: “always accept the gambit , make them prove its merit”.

That’s all I remembered. I never looked at it again because I haven’t run into all that often, until recently. Once again, in the lion’s den at the club, I was faced with another Master. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 I thought I was getting ready for a Benoni… but then 3…b5 was played. I took the pawn 4.cxb5 a6 and took again 5 bxa6 Bxa6 and then asked myself “now what?”

My game is too embarrassing to post here as it quickly went down hill fast from this point as I tried to avoid Black taking my Bishop on f1 and ruining my chances of castling…only to leave me in a horribly undeveloped position with Black on the attack.

Not all is lost. I asked my opponent to go over the fine points of this wretched opening and help me come up with a better plan that suits my style. Accepting the a6 pawn is a line but not for the faint of heart. It requires castling manual after the Bishop exchange on f1. It is very sharp tactically with open lines and lots of swashbuckling. I am more of a boa constrictor than a venomous viper I asked for a different way.

When I described my Samisch pawns and the d5 advanced chain he had a great suggestion: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.f3! and I can play e4 next.

( diagram) It doesn’t give Black the a6-f1 diagonal so early. Black will attempt to control the dark squares as they are weak with a Queen on b6 and B on c5. But that means playing …c4. White can grab Black’s c-pawn and hold on to two pawns fro compensation.

Black’s best response then is to go after the head of the snake and play 5…e6 6.e4 exd5 7.e5 Qe7 8.Qe2 Ng8 9.Nc3 Bb7 10.Nh3 c4 11.Nf4

This is an attacking line that can be very dynamic. I am still exploring this and not sure I am comfortable with a piece exchange for initiative and two pawns:

11..Qc5 12. Nxd5! Bxd5 13. Be3 Qb4 14.a3 Qa5 15.Bd2 Be6 16 Nd5 ( discovered attack) Qd8 17. Qxc4 Ra7 18. Rc1

White has a two pawns, lead in development, initiative and an easier position to play in exchange for the knight.

My alternate choice is 5.e3 a quieter line still under review.

In any case, if I face this at the World Open, I will enjoy playing it knowing a little more about this gambit and what to avoid.

Into the Lion's den: How I beat a Candidate Master

2011-06-11T17:13:00.003-05:00

First A quick check in with the Knight’s Errant. Looking across the interweb, and the Knight’s Errant Revival seems to have lost some steam with exception to the energizer bunny otherwise known as Empirical Rabbit (http://empiricalrabbit.blogspot.com/) . I see he’s still sharpening his tactical skills through scientific analysis. As for myself, I shifted from doing exercises from CT-Art to Convektica’s Strategy 2.0 puzzles and do about 10 a day. These are more along the lines of “find the right strategy” but are mostly tactical in nature.

I’ve been working more on understanding Pawn structures and looked at several videos here on Chess.com as well as picked up an out of print copy of Andy Soltis’ book Pawn Structure Chess and devoured it.

I am training for the upcoming World Open in Philly at the end of the month. Since I can’t afford lessons from a master, I decided to do the next best thing, play in the open section at my club for the Month of May and June. Every week is a lesson.

My first encounter with a Master in the Open section came at the hands of a 2300 player. It was an advanced Caro Kann, and I played a little too timid not understanding the advanced e-pawn chain structure fully. Had I known then, what I know now, I would have played 6…Qb6 to begin putting pressure on White’s d4. Then I failed to castle and chased ghosts instead. But hey, I got a good lecture after the game from my gracious opponent. Here is this sloppy game.

Fast forward to last week, by this time, I had played 3 games in May against strong players ( masters and experts) and absorbed their wisdom following post game analysis. I was also doing my background activity of learning the pawn structures most common in my games. I made notes and diagrams with ideas behind them. I set up positions and played against the computer to practice playing these positions so I could be comfortable “knowing” the position enough so I wouldn’t chase ghost. I did my daily exercises with the strategy CD and signed up for the open section again at my strong local chess club.

My goal was to reach a playable and familiar position I understood coming out of the opening and into the middle game. My opponent was a Candidate Master( at one time in his life he was beyond USCF 2200). He had a history of playing slightly odd opening s with move orders out of whack to throw people out of the comfort zone.

I had Black and played 1..c6 following his King pawn advance. He plays an odd variant of the Panov-Botvinick attack with 2.c4. My head was like “ I must support d5… Can I play it? Usually the knight comes out” ..and I played ..my first mistake on move 2…Nf6.

I never played the Alekhine Defense before but I soon had a feel for what this defense was like. After moving my knight for the 4^th time off to a6, I was finally able to advance the d-pawn.

“ Ok, so much for familiar positions” I thought. But I looked again and realized that White was about to play an advanced e-pawn structure like my previous game. THIS TIME, I knew a little more about how to handle it. I got Qb6 in early and it made the master think for a long time. I had a plan of putting pressure on d4 and controlling the c-file. It helped in looking at his threats and prioritizing where I needed to play. Since I had more energy in the center and open file, I was able to follow through with my plan before my opponent had a chance to execute his. At one point he sacrificed a pawn to gain activity on the King side but I was able to see through this and defend well. As he started to run into time trouble, he gave me opportunities and I found myself actually up the exchange!

That is not to say I went without blundering. By move 40, my opponent’s clock was running REALLY low and I found myself getting caught up with the “quickening” where had I used my time and slowed down, I would have trapped his knight . At one point I put myself in a position where he could have equalized with a knight fork but he missed it too much to the amazement of some onlookers.

Bottom line, a point is a point. A point from a master is my first victory against such a strong opponent.

Lessons to walk away from this include:

-take my time, what’s the rush.

-Knowing pawn structures and what plans work best helps when traveling in unchartered territory.

-Keeping the pressure on a weakness causes more problems than actually taking that pawn or square.

New York, New York… an Historic chess Legacy

2011-06-02T10:25:00.002-05:00

New York has a rich chess history of Super tournaments. Back in 1857, The first American Chess Congress was held. Paul Morphy won the event but refused the hefty prize of $300 ( estimated worth about $7000 today). Instead, he accepted a silver service consisting of a pitcher, four goblets and a tray! The event invited the top 16 American players shown below in the lithograph. Louis Paulsen was one of the players who came in second behind Morphy.

The Fifth (held in 1880 won by George Henry Mackenzie) and sixth ( held in 1889 and tied for first place by Mikhail Chigoran and Max Weiss,) American Chess Congresses were also held in New York Where this later event seemed to be the first to open the invitations to the greater International community. Gunsburg, Blackburne and Amos Burns finished 3-5^th in the cross table. The top American , Lipschutz, game in sixth place. Because of such strong players at the sixth congress, challenges were made to then World Champion, Steinitz. Steinitz supported the idea that once a clear winner was determined that he must face a challenge from the second or third place competitor within a Month. IN a playoff match, Max Weiss and Chigoran remained tied. Weiss was not interested in playing a championship match. Ginsburg, however, challenged Chigoran and drew a match with him in 1890.

Fast forward 34 years and in 1924, we see ANOTHER great super tournament. This time at the site of the Alamac Hotel from March 6 to April 18^th, we see an event organized by the Manhattan Chess Club ( A friendly rival to the Marshall Chess Club). This invited another group of strong international players. I mentioned in my last post that Dr. Em Lasker, at age 54, wins first place in this event and $1500 (worth $19,000 in today’s dollars). Richard Reti was one who broke Capablanca’s winning streak incidentally. ( I did a whole series on this event a couple years ago). The top American was Frank Marshall. He came in fourth.

Funny I should mention, Frank Marshall. Inspired by the great coffee houses of the past that supported this great game, like Café De La Regence and Simpsons in the strand, he decided to form a chess club that rivaled the Manhatten Chess Club (no longer in existence since 2002). His objective was to establish a meeting place for chess lovers and provide instruction for young players.

So with this long winded somewhat historical thread, I present the next big New York strong tournament. The 4^th Annual New York International will be held on June 17^th-21^st. Top prize is $5000 in the open, and $4000 in the top B and C section ( U2200 and U1800). If you win, you could do what Morphy did and demand a silver set instead of the cash! Maybe you can throw the gloves down and challenge a World Champion. One thing is for certain, there will be opportunities for IM and GM norms because of such a strong event. The main event will be held at St. John’s University. You can register on line at the Marshall CC : http://www.marshallchessclub.org

So if you are in the spirit of playing in a historic chess town, in a strong event sponsored by a historic chess club, you owe it to yourself to come on down to New York in couple weeks and get your game on.

Foot note: alright, guys at Brooklyn 64, if this gets you the Blunderprone Bump you seek… all I ask for in return is a Marshall CC tee-shirt in return ;)

Part 6 ( Finale): Dr. Emanuel Lasker; Old Lions still have sharp teeth.

2011-05-29T11:58:00.003-05:00

In 1911, Lasker was challenged by an up and coming star, Jose Raul Capablanca. Having witnessed Steinitz decent into poverty as a former chess champion, Lasker was reluctant because of the stipulation of “first to win ten games”. The match could last well over 6 months and the expenses to endure such a match were not prevalent. He made a counter-proposal. If neither player had a lead over 2 points by the end of the match, that it should be drawn AND the match be the best of 30 games. He had more stipulations but the gist was to favor the existing Champion. Capablanca didn’t like these rules ( especially the 2 point lead) and refused the match. Lasker took offense to the objections and broke off negotiations.

In 1912, Akiba Rubinstein and Lasker entered negotiations for a world title match. Rubinstein actually had a better tournament record than Capablanca. Again, Lasker pushed the envelope with asking for the challenger to come up with funds. Rubinstein didn’t have the funds and the match was never played.

In 1914, the St. Petersburg tournament saw a great collection of strong future players :Alekhine, Rubinstein, and Capablanca . It also had extended the invite to a couple of Master’s past their prime. Lasker was considered one in the corner ( as well as Blackburne). The tournament committee decide to hold two events. The five winners of the preliminary event would go on to the second. The event saw Rubinstein, Nimzovitch and Bernstein fall short of qualifying for the second event. Lasker was strong in the first event which qualified him for the second event. Despite a loss to Berstein and a draw to Nimzovitch, he managed to land in the finals a full point and half behind Capablanca. Here is a game against Rubinstein in the first section where he uses the rule of two weaknesses to land a favorable R and P endgame against an up and coming endgame genius.

The five winners of the first section were, Capablanca, Alekhine, Marshall, Tarrasch, and Lasker. Not on speaking terms with Capablanca, Lasker couldn’t afford any losses or draws. He had to win EVERY game in the second event. Indeed, he does this, with the deciding game in the second to last game against Capablanca. On Lasker’s 12^th move, he demonstrates a better understanding of the position by playing a move that seems to create a nice hole for Black… only to allow a king side attack by White.

At the event, Capablanca proposed a new set of rules for the World Championship match which all the leading players accepted. But, World War I broke out and any talk about a World Championship match was on hold for the near future. During WWI, Lasker only played in a couple events.

An agreement was signed in 1920 between Capablanca and Lasker to play a much anticipate World Championship Match in 1921. In August of 1020, it was reported that Lasker had simply resigned the title of World Champion in favor of Jose Raul Capablanca mainly because he was concerned there was not enough funds. He couldn’t justify spending nine months on a match . He was not aware that Chess enthusiast in Havana had actually raised the money for the match ( provided it was played there). Upon hearing of Lasker’s resignation, Capablanca went to Holland to let him know that the money was there. In a letter dated in August 1920 confirming this agreement, it also stated that he would resign even if he beat Capablanca so that younger masters could compete for the title. (http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca2.html)

The match was played between March –April 1921. The deciding game was really in game 5 where Lasker appears to blunder in an equal endgame.

Here is the game where on Black’s 34^th move ( sealed move of an adjournment) he was quoted as saying:

“It is usual to attach a "?" to this move. "31...Kg6 was better. Then if 32.hxg5 Ne4 33.Qd3 Qg4+ 34.Rg2 Qh4 35.Qb1 Kg7, the Pawn at g5 falls and Black has a good position"

At first sight here it is indeed impossible to convert the exchange advantage: the White King is exposed, and Black's Queen and Knight dominate. And yet White has a way to gain an advantage: 36.Qd1 Kg6 37.Qf3! (threatening Qf4) 37...Nxg5 38.Qg3, with good winning chances. So that 31...Kg6 was by no means better than the move in the game.”

After 27 years of the title of second World Champion, he passes it on to Capablanca. His next to last tournament before he retired from public chess events, was New York 1924. Here, at age 56, he demonstrates that old lions still have teeth and wins the event. He shows he has what it takes to go against the hyper-modern school of the young masters. Here is a game against Alekhine.

After finishing second place in Moscow in 1925 he bowed out of serious chess activity.

I will end this series on this triumph. Lasker’s life encompassed many triumphs. With a PhD in mathematics, he had papers published that formed the basis of modern game theory. He and his brother wrote a drama ( “History of Mankind”) that was performed in Berlin ( but not critically acclaimed).

Late in life, he returned to competitive chess for the money. He finished fifth in Zurich 1934 and third in Moscow in 1935 at the age of 66!

Lasker’s influence on chess was profound. Max Euwe put it plainly “It is not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and wonder.” He was a practical yet attacking player . He delivered several “ Lasker’s variations” to chess opening theory. Some may argue the peculiar way he demanded more financial support for match play as contrary to his professionalism in the chess world. However, raising the standards paved the way for the rise of full time chess professionals. Lasker also fought for the copyrights of the games to be owned by the players.

So this ends this series. I hope you all enjoyed this. For me, this was nice public study of the second World champion who’s 27 year reign on the top has yet to be matched. I like these stories of old lions who still can leave a mark!

Part 5 Dr. Emanuel Lasker: Defending his World Title

2011-05-15T11:06:00.005-05:00

In the last post, we saw how Dr. Lasker, while multitasking, was able to maintain his World title and still have strong finishes at top tournaments. After the Cambridge Springs event in 1904, Lasker’s appearance at tournaments became increasingly more infrequent.

With Frank Marshall’s first place victory at Cambridge Springs in 1904, it only stood to reason that he challenge Lasker for the World Championship. In 1907, this match finally took place but it became clear early on that the American master was far from Lasker’s equal. Despite his aggressive style(…or perhaps because he was too aggressive?) he lost games and drew seven against the World Champion.

Below is one of the games where Lasker has an incredible endgame combination.

Following this Match, Tarrasch challenged Lasker for the title. Reading the accounts of the banter that went back and forth, I could not help think of the similarities of two World Wrestling Federation trash talking each other before a “fixed” match. Tarrasch, who firmly believed that chess was governed by a precise set of principles, viewed Lasker merely as a “coffee house” player who wins solely by his dubious tricks. At the opening ceremony of the match, Tarrasch commented: “ Mr. Lasker, I have only three words to sat to you: check and mate!” Lasker’s best response was winning the match against his arrogant rival. Here is one game which showcases that Lasker is more than a coffee house trickster.

Because there is too much material in this series, I will briefly touch on the Match against Janowski. This started with a short drawn match in 1909 ( 2 wins and 2 losses). Several months later, it was followed up with a longer, more decisive match in Lasker’s favor. Lasker was more prepared for Janowski’s attacking style. More prepared, the attacks proved to be premature and left him vulnerable. There is a historical debate whether this was truly a World Championship match. In 1910, Lasker agreed to a “revenge” match under the guise of World Championship Match in Paris. Lasker won this with 8 wins, three draws and no losses. Next victim please.

Now we enter the period of one of the most dramatic trial of Lasker’s World championship. Carl Schlechter challenged the Champion in 1910 but limited the event to only 10 games. It is argued that Lasker agreed under the premise that in order for Schlecter to declare World Title, he MUST win by two points. This meant that both players were desperately playing for wins with sharp aggressive lines. Despite that, the first few games of the match played in Vienna were drawn and Lasker actually lost on the fifth game. When they reconvened in Berlin, four more draws followed. This meant that in order for Lasker to retain the title, he HAD to win the last round. Schlechter also had to play for a win in the final game though in the book,Lasker’s Greatest chess games, by Reinfeld, he cites only a draw was required by Schlechter to win the championship casting some doubt on the two-point rule. The following game is not with out positional blunders from both parties. Schlechter’s final misstep is what enabled Lasker to take this final match game to full point.

Part 4: Dr. Emanuel Lasker: Multitasking

2011-05-01T09:13:00.004-05:00

After a convincing World Championship rematch victory against Steinitz in 1897, Lasker seems to disappear from chess for a couple years. In that time same period, he managed to publish his book in 1897, Common sense in Chess, based on his 1895 lectures. In 1895, while recovering from Typhoid fever I must add, he published two mathematical papers in the Nature journal as he finished in 3rd place at Hastings.

The turn of the century sees Lasker finishing strong in a couple of major events after he took a couple of years off. We first see him in London in 1899, where he was in first place by a clear 4 ½ points! Georg Marco, a Romanian Chess master who came in 2nd place in the event ( and finished 17that Hastings a few years earlier), remarked: “ Lasker was there, Lasker I, Lasker the Unique!”

In this game against Tchigoran at the London 1899 event, we see Lasker not phased by White’s odd opening of 2.Qe2. Instead, he calmly maneuvers the came to a favorable position for Black where by move 26, he has a clear advantage and begins a forceful series of moves to close the deal.

The following year, he has another convincing victory in Paris (1900) with a 2 point lead ahead of Pillsbury. This game against Amos Burns, is a masterpiece of how Lasker took a slight lead in the opening and pressed on through the entire game.

In 1900, David Hilbert, a world renowned German mathematician of his day, became aware of Lasker’s published mathematical articles and encouraged him to register for his doctorial studies. Lasker attended the University of Erlanger-Nuremberg in the period of 1900-1902. He presented his thesis in 1901 and was awarded a doctorate in mathematics in 1902. His contributions to the academic world are now regarded as fundamental importance to modern algebraic geometry.

After accomplishing his doctorate, he appears back on the chess scene in 1904 and plays at the Cambridge Springs event. He doesn’t come in first place, rather, he ties for 2ndplace with Janowski. Frank Marshall came in first place. In this game here, Lasker ties with the first place winner. Marshall “the swindler” plays a gambit with a pawn down and manages to keep the edge against the World Champion to get the draw.

In another game at Cambridge Springs, the American ( with British roots) William Napier will most likely be remembered for this tough game he lost against Lasker for its tactical acumen by both parties. Lasker comes out of the opening with an inferior position as he didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking at opening variations and relied more on his tactical and positional skills to win the game. This causes the world champion to spend a considerable amount of time coming up with the right moves.

By move 21, Lasker only had 3 minutes left on his clock to make time control for the next 9 moves. This happens at one of the sharpest points in the game. The notes in the embedded chess game are transposed from Georg Marco’s through Fred Reinfeld. It’s simply amazing that Lasker can come from behind after an opening misstep and find just the right tactical play to restore balance. Lasker mentioned to the 26 year old: "It is your brilliancy, even though I won it." The young Napier was impressed at how Lasker kept his composure under such time pressure.

As a footnote: The Cambridge Springs 1904 event was where the Cambridge Springs Defense ( Pillsbury contribution) was debuted by several masters at this event. Lasker was not one of them so I chose not to showcase that defense.

Next time we will look at Lasker defending the world title.

Part 3: Em. Lasker; The Champion returns to Europe.

2011-04-19T18:33:00.003-05:00

In the last post, we explored the ramp up to Emanuel Lasker’s becoming the 2^nd official World Champion following Willhelm Steinitz. He returns to Europe in the later part of 1894 on the heels of his new title but was seriously ill with typhoid fever and had a very long recovery. His brother, Berthold, kept vigil the whole time. He was invited to play at Hastings in the spring of 1895. While he was convalescing, he gave a series of lectures in Europe which later became the material for a book, Common Sense in Chess. This series focused on some of the basics and I found a CBH version available on line for free. So if anyone is interested in this and can’t find it, drop me an email and I might be able to help.

Lasker really needed to finish strong at Hasting’s to dispel the doubts of critics who were still unconvinced by the match with Steinitz. Here is one of his wins against Pillsbury who went on to win the event despite this loss.

This turns into a day at the races. Even though Lasker placed third, Tarrasch, who was his biggest rival admitted that at Hastings “ Lasker has proved for the first time that he is a strong player.”

Shortly after this event, Lasker dominated the St. Petersburg event in 1895/96 in the famous Quadrangular Tournament. His victory was decisive as well as his games were on the ”high artistic plane” ( so claims Fred Reinfeld). Here is a game against Tchigoran where Lasker takes his opponent to task after a premature attack.

After St. Petersburg, he had another convincing victory at Nuremberg in the summer of 1896 where he took an early lead in the event never to have any of his rivals catch up. Here is a game against one of his biggest rivals, Tarrasch. He gets an early lead with a massive and mobile pawn center that soon becomes unstoppable.

He follows up this event with a return match With Steinitz. This time Steinitz’ games are less strenuous for Lasker. Rather than show a game where a strong up and comer takes over a Legend who’s prime has passed, I will take a play from Lasker and offer a tribute to Steinitz’ genius through the eyes and words of Lasker (from his book ” Lasker’s Manual of Chess” where he writes in great detail on this legendary genius):

“Another circumstance, a weakness of Steinitz, handicapped his style. He was obstinate.
Naturally, he wanted to follow his maxim and beat those who did not follow it,;
but thereby, though he was not aware of it, his Chess style became provocative.
He provoked his antagonists into playing to win, by giving them an excuse or at least a pretext for doing so. To this end he made the most unusual moves. Then, as a punishment for their presumption, he would beat them. That by his new methods he manifested his desire not to play to win from the start was entirely lost on his opponents, because their
experience had taught them to expect just the contrary. This whole process was
subconscious with Steinitz, and no logical necessity brought it about, but it
was the outcome of Steinitz’s Psychology.”

Sounds like Lasker took a lead from his greatest predecessor as it is said that Lasker emulated the very obstinate nature o f this in some of his “unusual moves” as a psychological ploy.

Next, Lasker’s brief break and triumphant return to chess into the new century.

Part 2: Dr. Emanuel Lasker World Champion contender.

2011-04-10T13:56:00.003-05:00

In part 1, I brought you up to speed on how Emanuel Lasker first came on the chess scene along with his brother Berthold. This took us into the dawn of the 1890’s with a nice finish in Berlin.

He traveled to London and did rather well at a couple of tournaments in the spring of 1892. The first event landed him a seat in the much stronger event, Quintangular Tournament, in 1892 where he met the British contemporary players of the day Bird, Blackburne, Gunsburg and Mason. Bird was a little passed his prime ( at 60) but Blackburne, the Black death ( I prefer the nickname “drunken Master” for his partiality for scotch whiskey and anecdotal tales of his drinking and playing), was still considered rather strong at 51. Regardless, Lasker amazed the chess world winning this stronger event. He had a decisive victory over Blackburne and Bird. Lasker’s placement among the foremost players of the day could not be denied.

He further demonstrated his ability to several individual matches with the strong players of the time. Two in particular, were matches with Blackburne and Bird. In both of these games against Blackurne and Bird in 1892, Lasker demonstrates how to attack the uncastled king quite convincingly.

With this game against Blackburne, on move 5 we see a novelty by the young Lasker. Blackburne, unaccustomed to the new idea, plays a slow move which creates disharmony with the White pieces. By move 10, Black is ready to build an attack. On move 16, Black doesn’t really sacrifice a Bishop. Instead he trades it for 4 connected passed pawns against a king whose pieces can’t coordinate to stop the incoming attack.

In this game against Bird, Lasker plays a novelty against the Bird opening that later became the strongest continuation for Black. As white tries to retain the extra pawn, he gets a weak position that Lasker begins to take advantage of. In this game as well as the previous, I see Lasker intentionally making moves and plans that leave his opponent either immobile or pieces so uncoordinated that he can do WHATEVER HE WANTS! In the later half of this game, he begins a 13 move combination that includes a rook sacrifice, calculated because he had gained so much tempo!

After his head-turning successes in both tournament and match play in England, Lasker heads to America where he continues to shock the world. He plays in the New York 1893 event and wins all 13 games despite the participation of Pillsbury, Showalter, Hodges and Albin. Here is a game against Pillsbury at this event. It’s a Ruy Lopez where Lasker exchanges the Spanish Bishop on c6 and a long positional closed game ensues. He whittles down Pillsbury by fixing all of Black’s center pawns on Dark squares rendering his Bishop useless. Then, he exchanges his own bishop for a couple pawns on the Kingside that allows him enough of an edge to make a run for it.

At the age of 26, Lasker was now ready to challenge the World Champion. Lasker challenged Tarrasch to a match but Tarrasch refused to play him in a match, stating that Lasker should first prove his mettle by attempting to win one or two major international events.

Fine, the young and up and comer turned his energy to challenging the then World Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, for his title. Initially Lasker wanted to play for $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money. The final figure was $2,000, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches. Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship on Steinitz' part, Steinitz may have desperately needed the money. The match was played in 1894, at venues in New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game. Steinitz responded by winning the second, and was able to maintain the balance through the sixth. However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the eleventh, and Steinitz asked for a week's rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in better shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz was unable to compensate for his losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won convincingly with ten wins, five losses and four draws. Lasker thus became the second formally-recognized World Chess Champion, and confirmed his title by beating Steinitz even more convincingly in their re-match in 1896–1897 (ten wins, five draws, and two losses).

Here is the 11^th game of the match played in Philadelphia. Steinitz makes a subtle miscalculation closing in his QB. Had this been any other player at the time, the former World champion could have recovered just fine. Not against Lasker, he saw well into the endgame with this misstep and went into the mode of making sure Black’s pieces could not find harmony. By move 18, Black’s pieces are so badly placed that he could not formulate a plan.

Contemporary critics of the time were very harsh on Steinitz, who in his 1870’s heyday was passing his prime. They were more focused on castigating Steinitz rather than praising the young Lasker. The common thread in these evaluations were that Steinitz had lost the match rather than Lasker won it.

Bardeleben commented on the match

“ Lasker lacks Steinitz’s profundity, but he makes up for this by his extraordinary self possession. His play is quite free from oversights, and that is the main cause of his victory over Steinitz. Another interesting characteristic of Lasker’s play is that when he has a bad game he defends himself with serenity and circumspection, thus making his opponent’s task as difficult as possible; whereas most players lose hope in such positions and make blunders which hasten the end. Lasker’s play in the opening is generally correct but never forceful and occasionally he passes by blunders of his opponent without exploiting them.”

Next up, Lasker returns to Europe as the new World Champion.

Part 1: Dr. Emanuel Lasker, The Beginnings of the double sacrifice

2011-04-04T21:26:00.004-05:00

Christmas Eve of 1868 in a suburb of Berlin called Berlinchen, one of the greatest Chess players in the history of this Royal game arrived to turn heads and challenge the status quo.

His big brother, Berthold Lasker had a growing reputation as a master chess player and taught his kid brother at the age of 12. I wanted to research some of his games to try and get a feel for his style to contrast with the more historically famous world Champion. I could only find a collection of 8 games here.

Rather than posting them here and making it take longer to view, I recommend at least checking out the games that Berthold had against Tarrasch. What strikes me is that these are not his strongest games since I am reading that Berthold was a master. Rather, what I see is a player who is not afraid of experimenting in the opening and breaking the chains of the dogmatic classical play. I believe this was an early influence for his younger brother though Emanuel didn’t really start playing seriously until his he was 15.

At 21, the younger Lasker surprised the Berlin in 1889 by taking first prize. In one of his most astounding games against a stalwart classical player, Jacques Mieses, Lasker sacrifices two knights. The Vienna game was a sign of the times as an alternative to the King’s Gambit.

As Black, Lasker plays a novelty for the time with 2…Bc5 and fires off a rapid development. He jumps a whole two tempi in development and opens the game up with a knight sacrifice and demonstrates how a well coordinated set of pieces can work together to take out a king still stuck in the center. Then he closes the deal and sacrifices a second knight to push the envelope even further as White’s forces are so disorganized he ends up resigning.

Quite the reputation he gained in his first strong event. A month later, he shows up in Breslau at the Hauptturnier, finishing first place earning him the title of Master. This secured him a place in 1889’s Amsterdam’s event where he placed second to Amos Burns. It was at this event where we first see “Lasker’s Sacrifice” of the double Bishops. The game is Lasker- Bauer. He plays a Bird’s opening. This colors reversed Dutch defense places strong emphasis on e5.

White is allowed to align his forces rather well at the expense of Black’s queenside special edge. It provides Black with a false sense of security as White then pounces on e5 first followed by removing the only defender left on the Kingside. Once Black’s Knight is expunged, BAM! Bxh7+ followed by a Bxg7. Like the previous game, he demonstrates a well coordinated attack by sacrificing two pieces.

I will close part one with a game between brothers in the following year. Berlin 1890 shows the two hometown brothers to be tough contenders to a prize recently won by the younger brother. This short game is really not a good characteristic of Berthold’s ability as he and Emanuel went on to share first place with his Brother at Berlin. In this game, the student becomes the master as he teaches his older brother the perils of underdevelopment ( albeit forced).

Final Note: thanks for all the suggestions both in posts and offline. I decided to move forward with Lasker for now ( since this was the most popular choice).

Reader's Choice

2011-03-27T19:44:00.002-05:00

It’s been a while since I did a series of posts highlighting an old tournament. When I last left you, I was stuck in the seventies with Lone Pine 1975 and left Pal Benko in the barber’s chair.

I’m looking for inspiration and direction at this point. I decided to put it out to my readers and will tally the votes over the next week or so.

Here are the Choices(due to my library):

A: Finish what I started with Lone Pine 1975 picking up where I left off?

B: St. Petersburg 1909 ( Book notated by Lasker who played. Other top players include Rubinstein, Speilmann, Teichman, and Schlecter to name only a few)

C: A review of some of the classic games out of Howard Staunton’s Chess Player’s Handbook ( vintage stuff but sure to please the Romantic and Classical era buffs).

D: A Deep dive of the games of Emanuel Lasker’s games of 1889-1914 ( I probably would round it off to include NY 1924 games as well).

School’s back in session. Blunderprone’s Magical History tour steam locomotive is stoking the burners with a fresh pile of coal and taking on passengers. Let me know which destination you prefer and I will set the course and clear the tracks.

ALL ABOARD!!!!!

Thinking during the Opening.

2011-03-20T15:33:00.001-05:00

I’ve been asked to show a couple wins once in a while. Today I will showcase a couple of recent games that weren’t all too blunder-full. First. a little insight on the training update. Aside from a ridiculous dose of daily tactical puzzles, I believe I found a coach I can afford which equates to a stronger player than myself who recently went through a fairly sharp rise in playing strength as a class player ( now expert) after some coaching from another friend and candidate GM Dennis Shmelov. We had one online “discussion” covering one of my losses at the recent Eastern Class championship where I was just thrown out of the opening and left to my own failing devices to find the right ideas. My play resembled more like a chess board version of the science channel’s show, Survivor-man but without the battery and steel wool to create a fire. The new coach showed me how I could have created some fire had I rubbed two pieces the correct way and watched for the direction of the wind.

The first game has an interesting tactical exchange in the middle after I take a deliberate risk. I played white into an orthodox QGD. I found my opponent moving the Q-bishop 3 times which allowed me time to get into a good position. I really didn’t want to squander it. I anticipated Black preparing to castle Q-side so attempted to shift gears in that direction but then he consciously decided to leave his king in the center. Despite a splitting headache in the last round of the weekend swiss, I was feeling pretty excited about the new prospects by move 16.

I had a choice of creating a battery with Queen and Bishop and target a knight tossed in the corner or shoring up the center with the f-pawn which created risk. My headache wanted more pain as I took the more risky approach of 16.f2-f4 instead of the safer 16. Qc2. I had gulped a couple of advil around move 7 and the throbbing hadn’t quite subsided. Now, when I do tactical training, I make sure I do this under ALL conditions. When I am tired, I will do tactics. When I had a great day, I will do tactics. When I am sick…When I am under attack by all kinds of distractions… you get the picture. You never know what the conditions will be like at a tournament. So I saw if playing 16 f4 black had the response 16..d4. But here I calculated through my headache. 17Ne4 to 18Nc5 with Black’s counterplay 18..Qc5 ready to create a discovered check as I drop a pawn and he forks my rook and queen. WHY, you might ask do I play such risky lines? Its what makes me blunderprone. I am a RISK taker and I also saw beyond the discovered check with a 19 Nxe6 e2+ 20 Nxd4 exd1=Q 21Rxd1 and I am up a piece! That was the line played BUT I SAW THIS BEFORE I PLAYED MOVE 16!

Next up, is a recent win at my chess club. The game ended in my opponent playing a blunder that I have played all too often. Blinded by a strong attack he dropped a rook. Before that howler, the game was pretty solid and what was different for me was that I had spent several hours watching a series of videos by David Pruess on Development and the finer points of counting tempi, how it is in closed versus open positions and how to turn it into an advantage. I played this game focused on these principles instead of playing blindly by rote in the first few moves. The first few moves of the game has been a slippery lazy slope for me as I tend to move quickly and snap moves according to a bad memory. Having something to *think* about during the opening stage gave me a chance to snap out of zombie moves. I consciously weighed the benefits of entering against an IQP on the Black side of a C-K Pannov variation. I played cautiously and deliberately played a couple extra pawn moves mid way through as I focused on blockading the IQP on d5 with my knight. Without utilizing or mobilizing the d-pawn, I knew my opponent didn’t have a target in the closed position and really could not open it. Exchanges were in my favor too. The only area he could open was on the queenside and I was ready for that and it allowed me to regain tempi once the position opened.

Blinded by winning

2011-03-13T14:51:00.002-05:00

I recently competed at the Eastern Class Championships. First off, I did not gain another 100+ points of ratings. Rather, I walked away with some valuable lessons. One I will share here is my first round loss. It left a big impression as it was a game where I had a won position only to play like a caveman and turn a full point to a zero. As we say, “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

The game started as a Benoni but quickly transposed the Saemisch variation of the KID where I have some “familiarity” of the position. Out of the opening, I ended up with a Space advantage in compensation for a slight Tempi in development disadvantage. Since the position was closed I was fine with this. As Black counter-attacked on the Q-side, I managed to set up a giant wedge pawn formation with the leader at d5. I think a part of me played for the artistic appeal of the pawn chain rather than the practical nature of it. There were stronger moves, I am sure, with risks. But having a flying geese pattern was “cool”.

As Black challenged my Q-side I was able to drive the menace back as he didn’t have enough attacking forces and I was setting up some tactical traps. An exchange occurred on the queenside liquidating the pawns, one set of rooks and Queens. It gave me a an advanced rook position where I challenged two pawns and won the blockading pawn of the massive geese pawn formation.

Here I was intoxicated with queening and started advancing throwing caution to the wind. Arrogantly thinking my position was so strong and my opponent was so un prepared that winning was inevitable.

What really happened was I stopped calculating as I was “so sure” this was a winning line I was blind to what counter chances my opponent had. ALWAYS consider the defensive powers of the side fighting for their lives as they could be as tenacious as …well.. me. I underestimated my opponent and lost the game with a couple of quick moves that over extended my advantage.

When you inherit a winning position, the first thing you need to do is take inventory of how well your pieces are coordinated. After winning material, the attacker is typically thrown into a square that is not ideal and requires a Tempo or two to restore balance in the position. I forgot all about that rule and thought I could simply “intimidate” my opponent. This sort of emotional rationalization is what blocked me from the proper thought process required to follow through with the right plan.

Do as I say, not as I have done.

Hard lesson shared here.

Chess Blog Carnival III: The Renaissance Faire Edition

2011-03-04T12:57:00.007-05:00

Welcome to the third installment of the Chess Improvement Blog Carnival meant to stir up some interest and traffic. I’m following some big shoes with Chess Blog Carnival I and Carnival II. We have yet to have a host for April’s installment of the carnival. So feel free to step up to the plate it’s pretty cool and you will get introduced to new bloggers.

First up is Chris Harrington’s Humanity and Chess Blog entry He takes a “private eye” approach and cleverly disguises this annotated game as if it were Guy Noir himself reporting about a swindle on dark and rainy night in Reno. Its an interesting game with lots of action. A nice sample of creative chess annotations. He Also drew my attention to another “creative writing piece relating a game to a crusade: http://humanityandchess.blogspot.com/2010/09/nevada-crusade.html

The Pied Chessman, Bob Lenning , gives us a look at the finer details of a Bishop’s of opposite colors and how it actually favors the Attacker. Typically these games tend to draw, but as he points out, having the initiative and the attack could turn that game into a full point on the score board. The illustrative example of Rubinstein versus Speilmann underscores Rubiunstein’s contributions to the world of endgame theory in this Slav Defense game.

Chess Blogger, fellow knight errant, Temposchlucker always has some insightful reflections of his own inner workings. In this submission , he gets into the finer details of how he practices visualizing the board through Blindfold practice. His convincing claim is that it helps solve a calculation problem of keeping track of pieces without having to physically see them. The exercise of blindfold play is not meant to be an impressive parlor trick when you have guests over, rather its another useful tool to transfer anther task from a thinking skill. Taking some leads from Dan Heisman, he gets into some detail on the differences of the 3 types of vision DH suggests: Board Vision, Visualization, and Tactical Vision.

If that isn’t enough, Chaos Monolith takes us down a variant path called Crazy Chess which introduces a concept called “denial” where the opponent can “deny” one move at any time in the game. It’s an interesting concept and sometimes I wish I could throw that one at my opponent AFTER I blunder.

Derek Slater at Reassembler submits this rather Zen-like approach to facing the French by denying the hostility that the troubled Black player seeks. “Don’t try to win. Just Play good moves and accept that a draw may be the logical outcome.” He goes on to mention how this Zen-like approach goes on to CRUSH the exchange variation.

Next up is a Blogger at Chess Skills who submitted a post about Keeping it simple .James relates a simple concept from Baseball to chess. Since it’s spring training time, I welcome this analogy and his tactical volley “when the ball is thrown” is a nice example.

Lastly, the one I call the energize, the empirical rabbit, keeps going and going with is tireless Design of Experiment approach to tactical training and how he is concentrating on memory training using a methodical staggered refresh interval. His post tests the Dan Heisman’s tactical advice of learning the Bain tactics. With all those charts and results, I was almost expecting a Cpk on his process. I admire this discipline and rigor he brings to pattern training. Bravo.

As always, I respect Mark Weeks input. This month he submits a behind the scenes look at looking at Chess improvement blog content and gives the pros and cons of blogs at Chess.com versus elsewhere. In an effort to distill the volatile nature of the chess blog world in general he presents a short list of quality blogs based on the following criteria: Written in English, On topic, at least one post in the last month, more content than a single uncommented game in a viewer, at least five posts total, and (as specified for the carnival) instructional. This is all very good input and meant to help the chess improvement blog world in a qualitative way. Thanks for the feedback Mark!

Well, that wraps things up here. I hope you all enjoy this month’s Renaissance Faire edition and visit the links presented here. If you do visit, please drop a comment or two and add to the community! Until next time , HUZZAH!

Watch Out for Gorillas!

2011-02-21T11:10:00.001-05:00

On the topic of Blind Spots:

Well, my winning streak has fizzled. My normal chess club is “closed” this month due to too much snow in the parking lot. This left me seeking chess action in other parts of the state. I decided to enter the 2^nd week of the month long 8 round G60 tournament happening at the Greater Worcester Chess Club. This meant some tough competition at 2x G60 per week. I called it good preparation for the upcoming Eastern Class championship.

I am studying tactics almost exclusively these days as my time is limited due to other responsibilities. I have been going over attacking styles following the games in Lev Alburt’s “The King in Jeopardy” book as well as a little booklet by Eric Schiller Called “ Attacking the Castled King”. The reason I started doing this was because I found myself having either a developmental lead out of the opening or a space advantage but only to play too timidly and squander the moment. I am hoping to learn when the right time to attack is given certain circumstances and how to create weaknesses on the opponents side of the board.

All this is trying to stitch together the static pawn formations I’ve been studying to some form of a middle game attacking plan given the placement of our pieces, pawns and kings. This isn’t easy as I am feeling a change in my attempted consistency of OTB playing ability and thought process.

Twice at the club, I found myself develop a blind spot at the center of the board where my opponent is actually setting up a pawn fork with my two minor pieces AND I WALK RIGHT INTO IT. I’m too embarrassed to even display these games here as they are ugly.

In one, I misplayed my King Bishop on the black side of the Slav against a strong Class A player. I played the bishop to d6 even after my opponent played a4. It really belongs on b4 in this position. Rather, I was thinking “ I want to play e5 at some point because it’ll free up my position. With my Bishop on d6 I can support this.”

The second howler happened against a Class C player. He was an aggressive player as I played the white pieces of a QGD position. I ended up walking into a pawn fork situation in the center once again when I should have exchanged pawns. I was focused on development and not taking the threat of the advance of his e-pawns seriously and considered his lack of development an indication of a premature attack. I didn’t go deep enough into the threat analysis.

Oddly enough, I was watching this science show recently looked into the human condition of blind spots or, more accurately, selective attention. Due to our color receptors not being as prominent as our other visual ( black and white) receptors, we are required to scan our field of view regularly ( subconsciously at times) in order to get the full picture in front of us. If we are in a situation where we try to focus on one thing, we will miss some glaringly obvious thing in front of us. One demonstration they did was to have a bunch of test subjects observe a group of basketball players doing passing drills and to count the number of times the “light shirt” team passed the ball. During the video clip, a man in a gorilla suit walks right through the basketball players, looks at the camera, and walks off. Surprisingly only a small percentage of the participants saw the obvious oddity.

Twice, the gorilla walked into my chess board this month and I was too busy focusing on MY STUFF that I completely missed the obvious. I was too hyper-focused with selective attention on MY game and MY side of the board that I completely ignored my opponent’s capabilities in the position. Having a correct thought process is very difficult especially when you are learning new concepts. In these instances, I was really looking for my chances to break through to my opponent’s side. My selective attention was focused on searching for tactics and attacking possibilities I could do and not so much the reciprocal of what could happen to me. I need to revisit my thinking process when I evaluate my opponents threats. I need to approach it with fresh eyes without my intents clouding my field of vision. The best way to do this is BEFORE I look at any of my candidate moves, to properly evaluate the position from my opponent’s perspective. After such, I should then go through and make the selection process.

Watch out for gorillas.

Come one! Came All! Chess Blog Carnival III Coming soon.

2011-02-11T20:17:00.002-05:00

Blog Carnivals aren’t a new idea. The idea is for the host to collect articles submitted by other authors on a similar topic that he then creates a post with links to the other blogs. The host then provides a brief round up of the collection. There has been a flurry of activity in the realm of Chess Improvement in the blog-os-sphere that In January, Blue Devil Knight hosted the First event followed by Brooklyn 64 in February and soon to follow right here by yours truly, on March 4^th. I extend a big thanks to my predecessors who have gotten the ball rolling.

You must use this kluge of a website to actually submit articles. The theme is loosely around Chess Improvement and what that means to you or how you are wrestling with it. Usually the author picks several sub categories like “ best presentation”, “Most humorous”, “ best Game example” and so forth that it really is all subjective.

We need a host for April, so don’t be shy. Why do a Carnival or contribute? It’s a great way to open new doors for traffic to your Blog. It creates a sense of community. Right now, it’s the dead of winter and it’s also one way to ignore the snow we’ve been getting in the northeast. Plus, when you host, you get exposed to all kinds of new bloggers out there you might not have heard of and pick up some creative ideas on the topic.

So, step right up, submit your favorite recent article loosely tied to Chess Improvement and don’t be afraid to host one yourself! It’ll be a fun.

Circle UP!

2011-02-02T18:36:00.004-05:00

A small ember burned in Brooklyn and the spark carried far. For it’s simple post here rekindled the fire that was once the driving force behind the Knights Errant. Now reborn, the Knights Errant Revival is gathering a legion of tactical warriors on a crusade for chess improvement through the seven circles of hell!

Circling around the Chess Blogs are now the following active knights! Do drop in and offer support.

Brooklyn 64 ( from this point forward dub thee “KE Brooklyn Division”) has completed his first circle MDLM style and shouts out to his fellow knights :

“Ideally, I think we should aim to have a knight in each class section of the large tournament this summer in Philly. With a little luck and a lot of hard work we may be able to put up a convincing performance across the sections. “

I smile… I will see you in Philly my friend!

Takchess ( new and improved link BTW) is following Doc’s orders on Problem 400 Circle 1 of Sharpen Your Tactics according to Last update.

The seasoned veteran, Temposchlucker , offers advice on integrating Strategy and Tactics and his views on what he calls this madness as “microdrills”. Always something good to read there as well as his selection of pictures should be enough of any reader to be intrigued.

Wang’s stupid job won’t slow his quest down as he realizes that tactics is the one thing he can do in spite of a lack of real OTB time due to circumstances. Check it out, He’s already got the CT for beginners worked out and is well on his way through the first circle.

The Improving player is psyching himself up with this linked article about a class B player gaining 200 points in 6 months ( I have only 70 more to go in five). Daily tactical training is in that article.

So that’s it from the Knight’s Errant Revival Round up. Drop in a comment of encouragement to the fellow travelers. Come and cheer them on!

Gaining 130 rating points in only 1 month

2011-01-30T11:21:00.004-05:00

I had two successful tournaments back to back in January where I took clear first place in my section. There was nothing different from the players I’ve been playing and up until that point my results were inconsistent. What has changed is mainly following a basic thought process of looking at my opponent’s move and determining if it’s a real threat that needs to be addressed or if it reveal’s the intention of a threat or plan. That’s not to say I go blindly and become a slave to my opponent’s desires. Rather, before I continue my ruthless task of decapitating the opposing king, I merely make sure no assassins are coming after mine.

I am also back on a tactical training regimen that follows loosely the Michael De La Maza method ( from this point forward referred to as MDLM) outlined in his book titled “ Rapid Improvement in Chess”. In short it’s a very brutal method of doing a set of tactical problems 7 times over until your eyes bleed. I’m no stranger to this method since I’ve done the seven circles of hell not once but twice.

Back in a day, Adriaan de Groot was a Dutch Grandmaster AND Psychologist who did a landmark study on what separated masters from amateur level chess players. In his published book, “Thought and choice in chess” the premise is that Masters recognize patterns on the chess board in ORDER OF MAGNITUDE greater than amateurs. There have been follow up studies in recent years. For instance, this link talks about which areas of the brain light up in an MRI of an expert versus a novice. The area that becomes most active is the part in the brain that is mostly used for facial recognition.

This is the basis why I chose to include repetitive pattern exercises in my chess training along with game studies ( chronicled mostly here) and OTB practice. I started an MDLM process back in 2006 when my rating was in the 1300’s. After completing the first 7 cirlces, I saw a spike in my rating… a HUGE spike in my rating gaining about 300 points. I joined a cult…er… community of online supports for those attempting the circles because misery loves company. The group coined the term “Knight’s Errant” For more information about this please read this FAQ and if you want some humor… I did this tongue in cheek “promotional” video.

On the subject of rating improvement, the results actually vary. Please check out this post as this is about as much of a collection fellow “knights” who road through the seven circles of hell. The bottom line is that if you start out as a Class C or lower, you have a higher probability of a huge spike ( greater than 150 rating points). The higher the starting rating , the results taper off.

I thought I’d share a little on my personal experience on doing the 7 circles from hell:

Like a moth to a flame, I stumbled on the Knights errant method, got the MDLM book…author of which was a member of my local chess club as well. As I previously mentioned, my rating jumped from the 1300’s to the low 1600’s and I was like WOW! The problem was that I had a hard time seeing the tactics and having trained in 2D using CT-ART, my mind had a hard time converting to 3D OTB ( or so I thought at the time). The other problem was that once I stopped doing tactics I could tell my tactical acumen started to wane.

How I did them:

I used CT-ART almost exclusively as I liked the fact that there is no “time pressure”. The first time around, I did 7 concentric circles. What this means is that instead of doing it MDLM ( level 10 then level 20 etc… return to level 10 after level 90 seven times over) I chose to do each level 7 times before proceeding to the next level. The second time I did the 7 circles of hell, I focused only on the first 4 levels of CT-ART since it’s rather advanced at the higher levels. Plus, this seemed to be the bulk of the problem levels I encountered. Currently, I am doing concentric circles with the following modifications: I do level 10 as many times it takes to hit 100%. ( 4 times this time around) and then the next level. I will not go past level 40 as I still feel the upper levels have more of a diminishing of returns factor.

Other tactical tools I used:

I tried tactics servers but my personal preference falls back to CT-ART only because I don’t want the time pressure when I am working these problem sets. I do use chess.com. Entry membership allows 25 problems a day. I have a premium membership so I can have more use of the learning tools and unlimited tactics puzzles per day…if I choose. These have a time component but they always work to just within my playing level. I use these on my smartphone through out the day in various waiting activities that life presents itself ( doc’s office, boring meeting at work, and of course sitting on the throne.)

Madman phase:

After I completed the first set of circles in 2007, I was like a teenage with too many hormones and not enough release. I thought I saw tactics in everything. I played like a caveman with my hair on fire. What this meant was I had inconsistent results. Against higher rated players I would have good games and play a lot more cautiously. Lower rated players gave me the most trouble as I was in berserker mode chasing ghosts.

Calming period:

Tactics and strategy go hand in hand. This is where Dan Heisman’s and Jeremy Silman’s critique about the MDLM method started to sink in. Heisman was more concerned about the selection of problems that CT-Art offers are not tailored to novices and suggests John Bain’s problems. Silman was more brutal in that tactical errors occur mainly due to positional errors. I created a void by not understanding strategy enough. A quote from Sun Tzu ( The Art of War) said “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”.

Thus I embarked on a better understanding of strategy and fell in love with studying the history of the evolution of this game through games collections from various tournaments through several chess eras.

During this period, I was only doing tactics once in a while at chess.com. I was converting CT-Art into chessbase format so I could practice the problems in 3D but that was slow. I found that, my tactical skills were not consistent because they were not a regular part of my training. Plus, I realized I didn’t practice any form of a disciplined thought process which I find today to be the most beneficial to consistent play.

Today:

So here I am now, daily doing CT-ART MDLM style and it fits like an old comfortable shoe. It’s like doing free throws in basketball. It’s zen like and I use it to practice thought process and emotional awareness. I focus on calming my mind, looking for the pattern, making sure I see what my opponent can do as well. I find the patterns are coming back to me so it explains why I can score better with fewer reps. I also find that since my OTB play focuses on strategy and positional merits first that I am able to see the patterns in 3D despite training in 2D. Case and point is the Qxg6 move in my most recent post. I “saw” the Bishop and rook mating net just like several of the level 10 problems.

Knight Errants being revived:

I want to take this opportunity to welcome some new knights in their quest to improvement. Brooklyn64 seems to be a full battalion of knights representing a section of New York . I like the idea of teams working together. I included several on my link list titled “Knights errant revival” here. But other than the KE Brooklyn division, no one else has a tactical training post to report as of this post. Stay tuned as I plan on keeping the light on here to offer support for the blood stained conquerors seeking tactical acumen. Drop me a comment here with a link to your post if you also want to be included in the side bar.

Knights Errant Revival!

2011-01-23T14:04:00.004-05:00

Sisters and Brethrens come gather round here. I’m shouting LOUD and PROUD about redemption! Redemption of LOST precious rating points taken away by stray thoughts , scrambled board vision and distracted by the devil himself disguised as a small child! I’m talking of the only TRUE path to salvation! You know what I am talking about. YES! TACTICS! You must not fear the tactics, embrace them for they are the true path to redemption!

Heed my words, I had a vision come to me last night. Now, come in close, as I can only speak softly about this. In it I saw the grand knight, MDLM himself! He spoke to me. He said “ Blunderprone, though you lack masterly skill, your charisma and wit is needed. You must receive the new scepter as Knight’s Errant keeper of the order. You must lead new seekers to the path of tactical righteousness. You must be the beacon for the hopeless as they reach in the darkness. Be their light to shine during their journey through the seven circles of hell.”

It’s a calling I must answer. For I have traveled through Dante’s depths not once, but TWICE . Now, I am embarking once again for my third trip into the seven circles of hell. I know I am not alone. This miserable journey is only comforted when in the arms of fellow travelers, known as KNIGHTS ERRANT.

Before I preach about the depths I have traveled ( in a subsequent post.) I will take this time to point out a new Knight beginning the journey. Simply known as Knight Errant Brooklyn division, it’s unknown how many there are but it sounds like a full battalion on the threshold. Please join me in welcoming their just and noble cause.

There are others secretly lying around wondering if the knights are dead. NAY! We are not dead, it was just a flesh wound. I was traveling through history and have seen positional enlightenment. I studied under General Sun Tsu’s art of war and understand the idea that “ Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” I want to share what I have seen in my journeys to the one struggling with the first circle.

So gather around, fellow knights past, present and future. Spread the word to those who seek tactical redemption that misery need not be alone. Come here for the fellowship that will restore your rating to its rightful plateau. Get off your rating floor, it's time to RISE UP and BELIEVE in the tactical vision! Let us be your light in times of darkness!

Behold the new sidebar as I bear the responsibility of keeping the order alive. To be included you need only to leave a comment proclaiming your quest. I will add you to the list as it grows. All I ask is that you make a post at least once a month on your struggles and cross link the list on you blog as well. To Knights of errants past, you will be included if you let me know as well, just need a commitment to help the struggling new members by commenting on their sights. In return, I will highlight on occasion, the new adventures of the knights errant.

HUZZAH !

Blunderprone, The troubled knight.

How I won my section at the Porstmouth Open

2011-01-16T20:52:00.002-05:00

I cleared first place at the Portsmouth open ( U1750 section)!

I think my slump is over. I went to the Portsmouth open with the intent of just playing some decent chess and not like a caveman with my hair on fire. I didn’t want to get caught up in memory games with “prepared openings” and I also didn’t want to underestimate my lower rated opponent. I just wanted to play chess one move at a time… and that I did.

Round 1:

My first round had me paired as White with someone 200 points lower rated than myself. I didn’t take this for granted as he fired off the Chigoran Defense. This is the one line of pawn formations I didn’t prepare for but I decided to just play the position. My opponent made the mistake of launching a premature attack, though I had trouble capitalizing on it, I did have momentum through the middle game. Despite not making the exact best moves, I just played sound moves and looked to an endgame that I could play. I ended up outplaying him in the end game.

Round 2:

Next up was a solid Class C player. We started in on an exchange Caro-kann. He missed a middle game tactic that allowed me to fork his queen and rook. When you win material, it’s a totally different game. I regrouped the forces and systematically put the squeeze on him.

(Round 3: Bye) Round 4:

Next opponent was one underrated Class C player who was slashing through the top players in the section like a Ghinzu knife through paper. He had been taking some serious lessons from Dan Heisman and it was showing. OK, I had a chance to get a free lesson from DH as well earlier in the year so I kind of knew what he was teaching him and decided to not freak out. When my opponent launched into the London System, I was somewhat relieved because I once played this opening quite regularly and knew what I didn’t like about it. I caught an early c5 in and began to hassle his queenside before he could counter with an attack on the King side. I pulled a small tactic that got me a key central pawn and strategically placing my queen in the center of the board versus his uncastled king. I was able to throw a noose around him with a knight and Queen snare.

Round 5:

My last opponent was all jacked up. He was the top seed in the section and needed the win to salvage points. He was prepping 10 minutes before our match, I was meditating in the fresh air and enjoying the sun despite the 32 degree weather. I had white and met his Nimzo-indian with a Rubenstein. He countered with the Fisher variation but I knew about this scheme and just played the position. I made it through the opening and had started an attack on the Kingside while my opponent’s pieces were corralled off to the queenside. At one point I had a nice Queen sacrifice and had he taken it, it was mate. Here’s the game.

Summary:

The big take away for me was practicing a real basic thought process. During the opening I was making sure my pieces were as active as possible, my king was as safe as possible and made it a point to see what my opponent wanted after each of his moves. I didn’t take any unnecessary chances. Even though I didn’t make the best moves for each game, I made sure I was at least as developed as my opponent and had as much if not more freedom of movement of my pieces. I paid attention to both sides of the board and didn't get stuck thinking I had to play ONLY on the side I made a plan for. I stayed flexible and it worked. Even when I had my hands around my opponent’s neck ( figuratively of course), I regrouped or was prepared to do so in case of counter play. Often, I got up to clear my head when the game got tense and focused on something other than the board. Doing so allowed me to come back refreshed.

As far as skill preparation , all I was doing to prepare for this event was tactics. I won the endgame in the first game because of a tactic I could calculate when the time was right. The second and third game presented tactical opportunities as well and when the fruit was ripe, I was the first to pluck it. My last game was a real sweet deal as my opponent missed a classic CT-ART style Bishop and Rook mate allowing me to clean up and expose his King. I still missed more eloquent ways to finish off the last guy but I played it safer.

Almost trapped a Master’s Queen.

2011-01-02T12:24:00.002-05:00

I started the new year playing the Herb Healy Open house. I ran into fellow blogger Takchess. Oddly enough I had several people asking if I was “George Blunderprone” as if I were famous. Go figure, I put up a blog and share my study topics to the world and everyone wants to shake my hand. The problem is that even though I can cover some intense topics and share some depth here on the web, in practice, with the clock ticking, I have a hard time with the follow through.

The Herb Healy Open house event at the Boylston Chess Club is an annual event complete with a food buffet. I heard at the event a little about the history behind why a Buffet is present at this event. Back in a day, the blue laws would not allow any businesses to open on Holidays. With such an all day event, there had to be provisions to feed the chess players. This was a tradition that stuck.

I blew all my brain cells in the first round against a Master. I had the white pieces and got to play a very good Saemish against the King’s Indian. I managed to make it through the opening and had some middle game action going. I gave him a chance to come in on my queen side and attack my un castled king and pick up my a2 pawn. I proceeded to chase his queen in the corner and almost had him either drawn or winning the exchange. The game is below. Before you chastise me, Keep in mid a couple things. The time control is G40, there is a 600 point delta, and about a 30 year age difference between me and my opponent. I consciously made decisions to delay castling but once I did it, it became an intoxication and fell into the stupor.

I proceeded to tank in my next couple of games. One game, as black I was disillusioned into playing an early Nxd4 ( as Black in the advance C-K) and didn’t see the trap my opponent could have played. Instead he played conservatively. I erred on the side of attacking versus development and got into trouble. I didn’t learn anything in that game and in the next round I played a very young kid and basically fell into the same opening trap with colors reversed. This time the kid knew what to do and I was down a piece. The rest of the game was an exercise in humility as I tried to keep my dignity as I struggled for a draw only to lose.

I finally broke a 7 game losing streak ( beginning in early December at the chess club) in the last round playing the C-K. I thought of withdrawing after round 3. But I am too damn tenacious to quit even if I should. It’s what’s left of a fighting spirit. It’s what drives me to be the pain in the ass player who refuses to resign to some kid despite the material advantage. I make them earn the point. Sometimes, this works to my advantage. There is some sense of clarity I get when I finally reach that point of not having anything else to lose.

I attempted to keep a mental inventory while playing these rounds. In round one, I was fresh and played cautiously but not too timidly until ¾ of the way through the game. I just couldn’t see the right solution. The second game, I made the mistake of thinking “ I should beat this guy” especially following a good game with a strong opponent. I threw all safety checks aside and instead tried to “PUNISH” my opponent too early. Given the fact that he missed the opportunity to win a piece, played into the intoxication of playing overly aggressive and not doing the basic thinking processes that Dan Heisman suggested. Round three I was still running on “ should have beat” mentality that I played into the same unconscious and reckless trap. Humility was a sobering breath for the final round which allowed me to play with caution again. Now, if I can only remember this lesson.

My rating has been in a free fall all year due to various life priorities. I am fast approaching my floor. It stings when you drop a piece and play like crap against players 150 points lower…back to back. But at least I know I played well against a Master. May 2011 be my rebound year.

My next event is at the Portsmouth Open. If you attend, come by and say hi. Ask for “George the Blunderprone”.

(Caro-) KANN! Part 1: The Wrath of Caro-Kann

2010-12-25T00:00:00.002-05:00

Nothing infuriates me more than playing a few good moves into the Caro-Kann only to mix up ideas from one variation and mess up. Then I spend the next 10 or 15 moves trying like hell to break out of the “Wrath of (caro-)Kan” ( Star trek reference).

George Marco, in 1907 wrote about this opening in his book on the Karlsbad Tournament. Since it was written close to when these two did their analysis, it provides a fresh reference. Of the Caro-Kann he says the following:

"This opening was first analyzed in the eighth decade of the past century by the
Viennese master Marcus Kann, and was first introduced into master play at a
local Vienna master tournament. Kann scored many fine wins with this opening.
See, for example, his brilliant success against Mieses in the Hamburg Congress
Book (1885), page 235. Later, in the 1880s, the Berlin master Horatio Caro
delved into the study of this opening, without however achieving any notable new
results. The opening has nevertheless been given the compromise appellation
'Caro-Kann,' which has been accepted and retained by the entire chess world.
Only in recent times has a northern German chess literature arisen that has
excised the name of the dead Viennese master in favor of the Berliner, and the
name 'Caro's Opening' has appeared. This 'innovation' will not prove fortunate,
for the historical truth will not suffer to be suppressed but will always retain
its rights. If one wishes to drop the compromise designation, the name 'Kann's
Opening' is the only correct way of speaking."

At the turn of the last century, this opening was still evolving. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 1960’s when the likes of Petrosian, Smyslov and Flohr really started to explore the theoretical side of this opening.
Let’s break it down from a pawn structure perspective. This post will take a cursory tour of the various pawn formations as a result of the Caro-Kann
The Caro-Kann challenge’s White’s 1.e4 open game repertoire by forcing him into a d-pawn like positional closed game. 1…c6 is purely meant to support the advance of Black’s d-pawn to d5. This is why I chose this as Black since most of my White preparation is centered around understanding the positional side of the 1.d4 game. Like most d4 games however, the problem for Black is what to do with that damned C8 bishop.

Classical and Main Line:

Enter the Main line 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 ( or Ne2) 3… dxe4 4. Nxe4 Black has two real choices. In the classical variation, the c8 Bishop gets deployed immediately to 4…Bf5. The second plays 4..Nd7 is played simply to support the advance of Ngf6.

In the classical variation 4…Bf5, white has a target and goes after the Bishop while developing. 5. Ng3 Bg6 with either 6.Ne2 intending to play Nf4 or Nf3 followed by an h-pawn push keeps black occupied with several Bishop moves and weakening pawn moves on the King side to save it.
In the classical and the4…Nd7 variations, Black’s pawn structure usually leaves him with pawns on a7 b7 c6 e6 f7 g7 and h8 where White has pawns on a2 b2 c2 d4 f2 g2 and h2

The Caro formation

This is a very slow paced game allowing for much maneuvering.

White will want an outpost on e5. He enjoys a kingside space advantage and, if allowed, a d4-d5 break will undoubtedly lead to the possibility of queenside majority in the endgame (typically after the exchange of White's d pawn for Black's c pawn). In some cases White will agressively target the e6 square with Bc4 and Nf4 with the intent of opening up Black’s Kingside.
Black needs to go after the weakness of White’s d4 pawn. It’s important for Black to play one of the lever moves like c6-c5 and e6-e5. The latter break is usually preferable, but harder for Black to achieve. Black will play The King’s Bishop to e7 or d6. One of the knights can act as a Blockade on d5. If given the opportunity to exchange light squared bishops, Black needs to embrace that idea.

Advanced Variation:

White advances e2-e4-e5 early in order to create a cramping pawn chain. My recent nemesis has been 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 and I’ve been attempting an early 3…c5 in response. The problem is that in the advanced e5 pawn formation I am much better playing the Bishop out to Bf5 before playing c5.

White will usually get a kingside mating attack going , with f2-f4-f5 break.

Important for Black is getting the QB active and that is why Bf5 is preferred. Black needs to hammer on White’s d4-e5 pawn center with f7-f6 and c6-c5 before White can build up an attack.
Due to White's kingside space advantage and development advantage, Black must generate counterplay or be mated. I’ve fallen prey to the sparkling Greek gift sacrifice on h7. That’s why attacking the head of the pawn chain with f7-f6 is seen as frequently as attacking its base, because it is harder for white to defend the head of the chain than in the d5 chain. In response to exf6, Black accepts a backward e6 pawn in exchange for freeing his position (the b8-h2 diagonal and the semi-open f-file making d6 a better spot for the f8 Bishop) and the possibility of a further e6-e5 break. If White exchanges with d4xc5 it is called the Wedge formation. White gets an outpost on d4 and the possibility of exploiting the dark squares while Black gets an overextended e5 pawn to work on.

The Exchange Variation:

White exchanges the e-pawn for Black’s d-pawn. Black is allowed to keep a central pawn majority and the struggle is centered around the challenge of allowing Black to realize any advantage in the middle game as it does become an asset in the end game. The pawn formation usually resembles a minority pawn formation with colors reversed.

White can take advantage of the half-open e-file and outpost on e5 which gives prospects of a King's-side attack.

Even if Black had the majority there, defending this can be problematic as the advance of e5 will be difficult or impossible. Black must counter with either a minority attack or a direct assault in the center. It goes without saying that Black can think about spending a moment to exchange the bad Bc8. I like playing the Qc7 early as it challenges e5 before White has a chance to develop a Bishop on f4. In most cases I get e5 in and then play an IQP position with some initiative.

The Panov Variation:

In the Panov variation, white plays an early c4 to put pressure on Black’s d5 square. Typically this plays into an IQP for white with some specific advantages. Isolated pawns are generally weak, but central pawns are strong. The critical isolated Queen's pawn (IQP) gives White some strength and space. White can avoid exchanges and has hopes of a King's side attack based on a N on e5 and a B on the b1-h7 diagonal. Black can consolidate and pile up on the d4 pawn, seeking exchanges and an advantageous endgame.

White can chose not to exchange on d5 and instead advance the c-pawn c2-c4-c5 and thus a “Panov formation” results.
This allows White to exploit the dark squares, and gain queenside majority in the endgame, with an advanced pawn. Black can do best with an e4 outpost, and a kingside attack. Going after White's overextended pawn, e6-e5 and b7-b5 breaks becomes thematic for middle game play.

It’s the most Blunderful time of the year.

2010-12-18T21:06:00.003-05:00

How much “chess knowledge” did I lose over three months? I decided to answer that question by going back to the club as my part time teaching gig winds down ( in addition to full time demanding job and other life distractions that younger players may not necessarily relate to).

Let me set the stage first. I spent last summer building up some opening tabias by way of understanding White’s perspective to pawn structures forming from d4. What this meant was, not necessarily studying the opening by memorizing lines and move order but trying to get a “big picture” perspective and understand what the themes are like. My White pieces were not doing so well as I liked 1.d4 but felt overwhelmed at the many replies Black would reply. I needed to break away from rote memorization habits and replace it with more of a pattern recognition and assimilate the correct strategy based on pawn structure. Pure memorization of move orders taxes my already feeble short term memory. I’m better off relying on long term memory recall of schemas and themes and derive move orders based on understanding and experience…in theory.

So how did I hold out? My first game out of the gate was actually at a one day event the weekend of Thanksgiving at the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial. I was playing a strong Class A player from Maine, who I’ve played YEARS ago when I actually lived in Maine. The rating disparage was roughly 250 points and I had Black. The best laid plans for my pawn structure understanding had a BIG GAPING HOLE because I always meant to do the same cogitation for the black pieces but, life got in the way.

We begin a discussion in the Advanced Caro-Kann and I stutter out a 3…c5 turning it into a slow French minus a tempo, except I’m not that fluent in French. Let me digress for a moment, for me, learning an opening is a lot like learning a language. I’ve always struggled with languages as the nuances and conjugations always tripped me up. Add to that, a requirement for full immersion into the culture is really needed to practive. Likewise, an Opening requires both the Theory and Practice. At best I get sporadic chances to play typical lines but here with the Caro-Kann turned French, I am having trouble finding familiar words per se.

I invert my basic tabia understanding of d4 pawn structures and attempt to look at this from Black’s perspectives. By Move 7 I am behind development and cramped and already faced with a critical position. Do I develop or can I take better advantage of the open d8-a5 diagonal? To make a long story short ( and the Game is below), I didn’t know how to defend my Q-side and allowed him to walk all over me… he dominated the conversation in the opening. In the middle game he has a powerful knight outpost on my d6. I try to counter with a king side pawn push. I get a lucky break as my opponent decides to exchange his other knight for the marauding pawns. But I blow it in the end as I missed a mating threat.

Overall, I managed to withstand an inferior opening mistake by recalling some principles of positional play based on the pawn structures. I am alarmed at how I tend to under estimate my opponent’s ability to come in my Q-side and tend to get into trouble as black whether I play the C-K or Slav. Is it a Blind spot or am I missing the right “conjugation”.

Tactically, I am weak as evident in the game when I missed White’s mating threat. I realize that its not necessarily that I missed the pattern, rather, I didn’t bother to look because I felt I had a better attack blinded by material and what could HE POSSIBLY DO? Well, it starts with a check and soon my material gain is unraveling . With my material gain, I lost tempo which my well experienced opponent utilized by previously lifting a rook and going after two weaknesses on my part, the center and an exposed king.

Given my 3 month short sabbatical from chess playing, its encouraging to know that doing an examination of the various d-pawn structures stayed with me much better than remembering the actual variations to the 10th or more move because once I recognize a basic pawn theme, I can come up with some of the right moves. Where I am weak most is on the Black side and in particular understanding the nuances on the Q-side enough to recognize a threat. This has plagued me my entire career as the pendulum swings. I’ve been through periods where I was overly cautious and played too timidly. Other times, I would completely ignore a b4 attack and not respect the threat. There’s a balance in there and I need to find it. Here, doing a serious deliberation on the Black pawn structures in my game will help register the correct subtleties associated with the various positional ideas of a Slavic pawn structure with pawns on d6 and e6.

Good tidings to all.

Chess Improvement and the HYPER-busy man.

2010-11-27T11:18:00.004-05:00

While my chess board gently weeps, I am reminded of how similar chess improvement can be to keeping up with your musical instrument. I play bass guitar ( and some 6 string as well). I find that after I lift this beautiful curved instrument out of its coffin after several months have passed, I play the familiar riffs and songs that were most engrained in my motor muscles of my fingers. I know how to “play” the guitar. I still recall the fingering for some of “the old standards” but the rust does show. I may have to create new calluses on my finger tips if I plan on “getting back into it”. But if I don’t set goals, I’ll pick her up, play it for an afternoon and put her back in the “coffin”. But recently, I’ve been playing it more and finding opportunities to play with others. I’m teaching my daughter as well and I have musical interests I am now pursuing. I need goals to stay motivated.

Chess is very similar. I pull the 32 pieces out of my rucksack and look at the familiar friendship I have had. Since it’s been several months since my last serious game, I play the familiar riffs in the form of tactical exercises or reviewing old familiar games. As I spar with silicon, I pull out my tried and true openings not daring to venture out of the comfort of my rote recall. I’ve offered to teach the neighbor girls who are just getting into scholastic chess. If I want to get back “into it” I need to form the calluses again by stretching beyond the comfort of rote memory.

My part time classes I teach are starting to wind down and I want to “join the band” again during the break. Like playing an instrument, playing chess regularly with the same people gives you a chance to tighten up your repertoire and build those calluses and get out of the comfortable rut.

Having been out of the tournaments for a little while gives me a chance to see how much I’ve lost. Right before I took a break, I had recently done a study in d-pawn openings. I want to see how much has stuck in terms of understanding the concepts. Sure, some of the ideas will have to be relearned, but I am also hoping some of the other misinterpretations and thought processes will be obvious and more made more clear. I am approaching this with new eyes.

So, given that I am still busy with life, jobs, my guitar and stuff, how do set goals for the next couple months and feel like I am going in the right direction?

I am going to make the best use of my previous encounter with Dan Heisman when I posted here :

http://blog.chess.com/Blunderprone/therersquos-always-a-silver-lining

My intent is that I need to keep this simple yet challenging enough to pull me out of the comfortable rote zone.

1) Thought Process: I need to keep the thought process simple and follow the AST method. ( Activity, Safety and Time management). I plan on playing practice games and look at where I failed in these simple ideas.

2) Criticality Assessment: This is the holy grail for me. The best way to do this is to play Blitz games and review my mistakes and understand them. This will also help me identify when I need to spend time on critical moves. I can check my openings with the book but I want to develop a sense on where I need to spend time on critical positions in these openings. Going over annotated games ( a lot of games) will form a good foundation. So I will probably blog about this study.

3) Tactics: need I say more.

I may dust myself off and play in the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial … I haven’t missed it for a couple years and my chess pieces are gently weeping.

Though my time machine may be under construction, I may have found the right flux capacitor and soon will have a MAJOR announcement that will rock the chess world after the new year.

Larry Evans: 1932-2010, America’s Chess Teacher

2010-11-16T21:06:00.003-05:00

It’s been a while since I posted due to a serious reprioritization of life challenges. However, Today’s news rocked my foundations and I felt compelled to do a quick Blunderpost on this GM who was very influential in my chess career. Sorry, no game's reflected upon, just admiration for an influential chess teacher.

I first heard of GM Evans during the days of Fischer vs Spassky, when he acted as Fischer’s Second. However, his contributions and milestones in the world of chess spans the decades of when this game was being dominated by Russians in the late 1940’s and Early fifties through present day. That is up until yesterday, November 15, 2010, when he passed away after surgical complications.

Arthur Bisguier and Larry Evans were both tied for first place in 1949 in the U.S. Junior Championships. He went to win his first U.S Championship in 1951 ahead of Sam Reshevsky. The following year, FIDE awarded him with the title of IM and later in 1957 he became GM Larry Evans. By the time I had heard of him in 1972, he had 3 national Championships under his belt and four U.S. Open Championships tying with Walter Browne in 1971 ( another up and comer). He Won the Lone Pine 1971 that same year.

So you see , his resume was very full nationally as well as internationally where he represented the U.S. in several Chess Olympiads winning gold and silver medals for his play.

I knew him through his books. One of my first books I had was Chess Catechism, a tongue in cheek look at the lighter side of the game. I liked it because it removed any stuffy images one might have around chess players. He had a sense of humor. I also had the landmark “ How to Open a Chess Game” where he co-authored with seven other GMs of the 1970’s.

I found out that Larry’s first books were published before he turned 18 with the two books; David Bornstein’s Best Games of Chess, 1944-1949 and the Vienna International Tournament of 1922. He has written over 50 books in a career that spans 6 decades!

As you may recall, when I was doing my series on Lone Pine 1975, I tried to reach Larry. I did through a third party who informed me to read the book. That’s Ok by me, I understand the busy life and finding balance these days. May he rest in peace.

Not sure when I’ll come up for air again. I am still in need of a new flux capacitor for my broken time machine. It’s going to take a little time to rebuild.

Putting chess on the shelf

2010-09-01T19:10:00.005-05:00

Folks,

Its been a good run at Blunderprone, but due to a busy schedule and a needed major shift in priorities, I have to put this on the shelf indefinitely. I honestly don't know when I'll make it back blogging about chess, it's rich history, the methods we adult improvement seekers attempt and overall camaraderie in this rich community of chess enthusiasts. I have a lot going on and I need to make a new time machine before I can continue my magical history tours again.

Check back now and again, as I will post some updates when I come up for air.

Thanks to all for your loyalty, support and contributions that helped make this one hell of a great site.

George Duval ( aka BlunderProne)

Lone Pine 1975: Guðmundur Sigurjónsson Icelandic chess Grandmaster.

2010-07-31T08:58:00.002-05:00

I’m back. I’ve turned the time machine back to this tournament so I can finish what I started. I searched hard for more biographical information for this Icelandic GM but all I could find was this short wiki blurb:

Guðmundur Sigurjónsson (September 25, 1947 Reykjavik) is an Icelandic chess Grandmaster.

He became International Master in 1970, grandmaster in 1975 and has won the Icelandic Chess Championship three times (1965, 1968 and 1972).[1] Played for Iceland in the Chess Olympiads of 1966, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984 and 1986.[2] His tournament successes included 1st at Reykjavik 1970, =1st at Sant Feliu de Guíxols 1974, =2nd at Hastings 1974-75, =1st at Orense 1976, =2nd at Cienfuegos 1976 and =1st at Brighton 1982.

In the November 2009 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2463, making him Iceland's number 10.

Let’s dive into his games at Lone Pine. I’m highlighting three Sicilians. In Round 3, he plays into the veteran Svetozar Gligoric’s Najdorf variation of the Sicilian Defense. He keeps a steady hand with the typical themes of castling King side, and advancing pawns on the Queen side. Gligoric seemed to play a little less energetically and allowed Gudnubdur a chance to build up pressure on the d-file and in particular, the d5/d6 squares where black has a backward pawn.

By move 15, Black has a couple of weakness on b6 and d6. White also has good chances to occupy d5 as well. In light of this, Gligoric does an exchange sacrifice with his rook for the White’s threatening knight. The Icelandic GM simplifies the game in a series of exchanges as there was no real compensation for the exchange.
The next game I wish to highlight is the one in round 5 against Panno’s Sheveningen variation. As a side note from an amateur chess historian, the Scheveningen variation of the Sicilian, first was debuted by Max Euwe against Maroczy in the town of Scheveningen in 1923.
The general themes of this variation are as follows:
This is a variation of an Open Sicilian where Black gets an extra central pawn. The e6-d6 form a barrier so that Black can focus on counterplay on the Q-side along the c-file. Moving the a- and b-pawns to a6 and b5.
White gets a bit of a space advantage. He also usually gets play on the Kingside.

In the actual game a central exchange on e4 plants a passed pawn on e4 for Black while giving White some control over the d-file. With most of the minor pieces traded off, the middle game struggles with both sides having awkward bishops behind their own pawns on the same color. White’s advantage lies in an outpost rook on d6. Panno makes the poor choice of exchanging his active rook for White’s bad bishop with a weak threat to follow. The game quickly turns bad for Black after.

In round 6, Larry Evans deploys a Najdorf which Sigurjonsson responds with 6.f4 this time. Larry plays some interesting variations with a king side fianchetto and a move like Nc5 making for a pseudo-dragon variation. Black gets into some space trouble in the middle game but manages to hold the position. White gets a couple of strong shots in on the d-file and begins the process of simplification. Once the major pieces are off the board, a draw is eminent.

He finishes with 6 points ( 4 wins 4 draws and only 2 losses). He earned his GM title in the same year following his performance at Hastings and at Lone Pine.

It looks like he drops out of international chess altogether after 1986. I could not find out more on what this Icelandic Grandmaster is up to these days.

I’ve seen the future of chess improvement.

2010-07-16T15:06:00.007-05:00

Most often, you have read here about my time machine traveling back in time to visit the famous chess tournaments over the past couple of hundred years. Since this IS a time machine, while I was at the world open, I dialed the Delorian to peer into the immediate future of chess improvement. I thought I’d enlighten you all with the vision that was presented to me just a short while ago.

First of all, imagine a clock that is as durable as a chronos, easier to set and doesn’t look like a something made from someone’s garage. That’s right, the future holds bright for a new line of products starting with a smart clock : http://mychessclock.com/Top_Secret_Chess_Clock.html. An entrepreneur was looking for someone to partner with that could do some electronic wizardry. I had a pretty decent book of spells with me. That meant a partnership began. I’ll only tease you with that this will be a clock that will make a TD’s life much easier especially at a large scholastic event to make sure all the clocks are set right. And, it will look cool.

Speaking of a smarter chess experience, the biggest vision came from someone I once featured here recently, Andres Hortillosa, an author of chess improvement. He’s working on an interactive learning experience at Play Smart Chess http://www.playsmartchess.com/ . He demo’d an iPad with his software running on it. In his own words:

“Can you imagine reading your favorite chess book in a form where you get to see an interactive chess board in place of a diagram? How will the tool impact and deepen your learning experience? … Our application will allow you to replay the moves leading to every position of concern even right from the opening. “ A. Hortillosa

Here are some screen shots on an iPhone:

“In summary, we are changing the way chess knowledge is delivered, acquired and consumed.”- A. Hortillosa

I’ll be vacationing and taking a blogging break. Mull these ideas over while I’m gone. When I come back, I plan on picking up where I left off at Lone Pines. See you when I get back!

There’s Always a Silver Lining

2010-07-05T12:52:00.003-05:00

Because I was sucking wind so bad in my section ( 4 losses in a row) I was sitting at a table that was either kids under twelve or grumpy old codgers trying desperately to salvage some dignity after a rather humiliating performance in the first 5 rounds. I was fortunate enough to discover my opponent was of the older type. It just so happened that Dan Heisman was coaching several of these adults and one of the kids around me. After I finally broke a perfectly good losing streak, I struck up a conversation with Howard Stern’s coach.

Dan Heisman is a very personable and approachable NM. Since he was in a waiting mode for his students he offered to go over a game of my choice and give me a free lesson! He covered a lot of ground and I did my best to jot down everything he had to say so I could share it with you. I’ll talk about some of the general advice he gave me and finish with some analysis on one of by Badness games.

Activity Safety and Time Management (A.S.T)

Dan’s first bit of advice had to do with making sure my pieces were active . “ Think of it like being a manager. You’ve got four of your who already moved once. The rooks haven’t moved yet. They are like new employees, you need to spend time with them.” Unless there is an obvious tactic, your first priority is to get your pieces active.

Safety is another consideration that needs to be adhered to. Counting techniques can eliminate most one move blunders. Knowing which side of the board your opponent is coming after you helps in determining which side to castle sometimes.

Time management was a strong topic Mr. Heisman drilled in me. Though I don’t have some problems with this, he pointed out the difference between what he called Micro Time Management versus Macro Time management. Micro time management is knowing when you can get away with making moves with less time versus using your time for critical positions. He advocates making the most out of the clock during each move. Most of my time management technique falls under the macro heading where I basically lump my playing into targeted time limits in 5 move increments. This discussion lead to the following topic.

Criticality Assessment:

What? This is knowing when a position is critical. “But isn’t this the Holy Grail for us patzers?” I asked. “How does one develop this skill?”

According to DH, the best to do this is to (1) PLAY BLITZ games and (2) Play over lots of annotated games. Now, he did say that just playing Blitz alone doesn’t do any justice unless you go over your mistakes. However, you develop a sense on when to spend your time on critical moves and decrease the time you spend on non-critical moves. Check your openings with the book after 3-4 games and see where you need to make improvements and go back for more. Sooner or later you will develop a sense for when critical positions come up. These are worth spending the time on.

Going over annotated games is the other half of this. In his words, “ After you play over hundreds of annotated games, you will have this voice in the back of your head as if it were your father telling you sage advice you never wanted to listen to when you were young. Only this time, you should listen.” He mentioned that its not a matter of memorization of the games, rather, with good annotations ( the verbose kind for us Class players), you get a better understanding of positions.

Tactics:

Dan didn’t have a good thing to say about CT-ART 3.0. “ How many times in your games do you get to sacrifice a queen?” He suggests John Bain’s book where there are more “removal of the guard” and gradual basic tactics. They may seem simple but getting to the point of really KNOWING these like your multiplication table gives you an opportunity to see the these kind of tactics when they come up in your games. Even if tactical shots only occur in 5% of your games, you are best to know them cold. It works the other way as well. Being able to see tactics coming at you will also save you from tripping up.

Now, on to my Badness game that he graced me with for analysis:

I had white, my opponent played a Benko Gambit. First off, he says “ You play 1.d4 2.c4? You know you need to know the tabias of 10 openings with that.” Of which I had about 7 (kind of sort of) under my belt given the latest series of posts ( QGA, QGD, Benoni, KID, NI, Grunfeld, and Dutch). The Benko-Gambit was not one of them and I gave it my best shot but underestimated the fact that Black has all his energy on the Queenside. With my passive moves and positional missteps, White was playing a totally defensive game.

Editor's notes 7-6-2010: Dan corrected me in that he is an NM and was coaching several of the adults around me and only one of the kids.

Let The Games Begin!!!

2010-07-01T10:28:00.003-05:00

The 38th Annual World Open is underway!! There are 4 front runners in the open section: Francisco Vallejo Pons, P Harikrishna, Sandipan Chanda, and Luke McShane all have 2 points after the first couple of rounds in the 7-day event. More GMs are expected to come as the layered schedules unfold.

My games begin tonight as I play in the 5-day schedule. Come find me if you are here or wish me luck ( or at least not to blunder).

I'll try to keep you posted on the road from an Class B player's perspective.

Pawn Formations Part 6: Dealing with that Darn Dutch Defense

2010-06-27T16:57:00.003-05:00

Now that I got your attention with the lead in photo. I search google images for Elias Stein (1748-1812), the Dutch Chess Master who recommended 1…f4 as the best response to 1.d4. This picture came up in the first page of searches oddly enough. No relation whatsoever to Mr. Stein… but it sure was different, no?

Elias Stein was around during the days of Francois Philidor and probably frequented the Café de la Regence in Paris. He wrote that “ If the opponent opens by pushing the queen’s pawn two squares, you cannot do better than to push the king’s bishop pawn two squares.”

Other than 1..d5, it’s an alternative that immediate contests White’s quest to dominate both central squares. I like the line that immediately plays 2.g3 but even the flexible 2.c4 can transpose. After Black plays 2…Nf6 3. C4 brings us to the main line of all the major branches. It’s Black’s third move that determines the course. If he begins the finachetto with 3…g6 it follows a Leningrad Dutch. If 3…e6 is played we are going down the classical Dutch which unfolds into other realms ( like the Stonewall).

The reason I like the 2.g3 line is that with 1..f5, Black concedes his c8-Bishop’s best square to challenge the center. White playing for immediate control of the long diagonal challenges the light squares.

Leningrad:
The critical Line so far: 1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 and now 3…g6 for Black enters the Leningrad Dutch. Black plays a type of King’s Indian with the f5 push. The challenge is the weakness on e6. White actually has some flexibility with the fourth move. 4.c4 is theprinciple move but will sometimes hold off and develop the King’s knight and castle first before bringing this pawn forward. 4. Nh3 is a valid line with the intent of going to f4 blocking Black’s f-pawn. The general theme is to build pressure on e4, nothing unusual in this d4- games. However, with the King side finachetto, White can really delay the e2-e4 push and take his time to develop towards the Queen side. Getting the Queen bishop on the other long diagonal is the best way to contest the Black pieces.

Classical:
With 3…e6, again 4.c4 is the principle line but can delay it until after the Kingside is developed. Though, playing 4.c4 is my choice as I would rather face the Stonewall variation (4…d4) with the option of exchanging cxd5. If Black plays 4…d6 we enter the main line of the Classical Dutch. There are similar themes with building pressure for e4. In the classical line, White can play to gain space on the Queen side. In the Stonewall, with 4…d5 5.cxd5, this sets up similar themes of minority attacks for White. With the pawn on f5 however, White has a little more of a hard time mustering up a king side attack as in the QGD-Exchange variation.

It just so happened that I was barely prepared to play this opening this past week at the club. I lost due to a strategy error. For some reason I was fearless and allowed my opponent to gain a nice outposted knight on c4.

I know, go ahead and beat me up… I already did. I did walk away with my class A player remarking that I played the strongest continuation to his variation of the Dutch that he decided he was not going to play it again at the Club because of it! So there, even when I lose, I inflict some level of intimidation. Go figure. I’ve been working on improving my strategy all week at chess.com using the mentor tools. Good stuff.

Bring on the World:

I am hitting the road this week and heading to the World open. If you are there look for me in the U1800 section. This will be my year to win… right? ( Everyone says that) I just hope to have a strong performance and play some decent chess. I am looking forward to this. If you are there and in my section, be prepared and read my blog… I want a good challenge or I will OWN you!

Pawn Formations Part 5: QGA, Some hair brained Ideas

2010-06-19T15:55:00.002-05:00

The line I am looking at against the Queen’s Gambit accepted is the Classical variation with 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4. e3

For the most part, Black will not try to defend the pawn on c4 and , instead, play 4…e6. If Black plays to support the pawn with 4…b5 White responds with 5.a4 c6 6.b3 and he can prepare to occupy the center with e4.

Occupying the center with e4 seems to be the main theme throughout this opening. If given the chance this usually gives white a strong center. Black’s sharpest responses are those that challenge the center starting with …c5 and pushing White to an IQP. White can usually enter these IQP positions with an initiative.

Following the main line classical, 4…e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. 0-0 ( I looked at the Furman Variation with 6.Qd2 which plans for dxc5 without prompting the queen exchange on d1 but Black can easily find the correct play). 6..a6 is the typical response. Black can play 6…Nc6 but its not as flexible because in some variation the b8 knight is better off on d7.

After 6…a6 I was faced with several choices as White on how to proceed. A lot of White’s choices allows Black the b5 pawn advance ( Nc3, Qe2 for instance) and a preventive move with the Bishop to Bb3 ( still supports the strong diagonal) or Bd3 to support the advance of e4 still doesn’t stop the advance of Black’s Queen side pawns. 7.e4 intends to advance to e5 but Black can still muster a counter attack on the Queenside. That is why I will look at the old main line 7.a4 as it puts a stake on b5 and slows Black’s Queenside advance.

White will play Qc2, Rfd1 and Nc3 to complete development and support e4. Black will play to exchange on d4 and put his energy on that square more so than on e5. White can get control of e5 and the center .

Atypical continuation is as follows.

7. a4 Nc6 8. Qe2cxd4 9. Rd1 Be7 10. exd4 O-O 11. Nc3 Nb4 12. Ne5 Bd7 13. Bg5 Rc8 14. Bb3 Be8

By Move 15, White enters an IQP with an initiative on the Kingside while Black position is solid.

Here is a game by Kramnik using this 7.a4 line:

My next post will be the last in this series of Pawn formations. I am looking at White’s themes against the Dutch. Hope you all enjoy this.

Pawn Formations part 4: Carlsbad Formation (QGD-Exchange)

2010-06-13T21:02:00.004-05:00

Test Driving the formations:

Before I get into a discussion of the pawn formations of the Exchange variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, I would like to tell you about my recent experience over the board. I decided to test drive my opening preparation at the Somerville Open this past weekend. First and foremost, when I say “opening preparation”, I am not advocating rote memorization. Since I play 1.d4, I expect to play closed positional games. This means understanding typical positions that come out of my openings. Fundamental to understanding the position, is the pawn structure. Knowing the essence of the pawn structure helps guide me to a more positive experience in the middle game.

Now, I’ll cut to the chase. I tied for first place in my section. Had I won my last game, I would have cleared first place altogether. I was able to play both the Samisch and the Rubinstein with favorable results. I discovered some minor tweaks that are needed in these lines as well as my Black repertoire. My tactics were sharp as I do a daily dose of 25 puzzles. The endgame is where I will need to put some polish before the World Open in 2 weeks. So look out.

Back to our regularly scheduled program on the QGD-Exchanged variation:

To address the traditional QGD player, I decided on the exchange variation as it immediately sets up the Carlsbad Pawn formation ( After, 1.d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 with e3 to follow):

In this formation, White has a choice of plans: to prepare the advance e2-e4 (usually by f3), or to play the minority attack. White has weaknesses on c4, and sometimes e4. Black will try to use the e4 post and create a King side attack.

Characteristic of a minority attack is to advance the queenside pawns followed by pieces to create structural weaknesses for Black. When White advances his b-pawn to b4, this leaves a distinctive hole on c4 begging for a Black Knight to come and perch. Black would then strive to: a) exchange the light-squared bishops, and b) attempt to place a Knight on c4 via b6 or d6 (or both). White would, of course, try to counter those plans. Black, by playing a6 to prevent b5, has some problems as well. It weakens the square b6 directly and c5 indirectl, given that if black proceeds with b6 (to strengthen c5), then the a6-pawn could come under assault.
For a good tutorial on Minority Attack basics I recommending reading this Blog post : http://chess-training.blogspot.com/2007/08/strategic-planning-minority-attack.html

Though I seem to have the opportunity to play the minority attack on occasion, I find the lines developing the Nge2 to be more favorable to pawn formations I’ve been studying and prepares for the supporting move of f3 to allow e3-e4. With the following continuation after 5.Bg5, c6 ( here Black can choose the natural Be7), 6.Qc2 Be7 7.e3, Nbd7 8.Bd3 0-0 9. Nge2.

This allows for a choice of castling long and launching an all out attack in the center. I am looking into several games with this line.

Here is a game by Alekhine who was one of the first practitioners of this variation:

With the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, I am still deciding my best approach on this. I hope to cover this next time.

Pawn Formations Part 3: The Grunfeld

2010-06-06T13:30:00.007-05:00

Ernst Grunfeld introduce this defense against none other than Alexander Alekhine in Vienna in 1922. Oddly enough, Grunfeld was known more for his classical style ( Tarrasch-Steinitz school of chess) which tended to stay on the side of avoiding complex variations. Thus, when he deployed this defense against 1.d4, he challenged one of the Hypermodern proponents from the start.

Hat tip to RC_Wood from Chess.com for providing this game with annotations.

In the game, Alekhine takes on the exchange variation throwing everything including an early h4 pawn march. You see an early Bg5 which was later developed by Taimanov. He throws in a Bb5+ line made popular in the 1990’s. Alekhine’s folly seemed to be in not playing e4 early.

The main line for the Grunfeld Defense’s Exchange Variation follows: 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 ( to immediately challenge e4) 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7

The position above reaches the main branching lines of either the Modern 7.Nf3 or the classical 7.Bc4. Other minor variations include 7.Bb5+ 7. Be3 7.Bg5, 7Qa5+ . This post will focus mainly on the Classical variation with 7.Bc4.

In my repertoire, with Rubinstein variation against the Nimzo-Indian and the Samisch against the KID, picking the classical in the exchange variation of the Grunfeld made the most sense since similar themes arise. The King knight typically goes to e2 but this time with the eye on f4, Castling King side is the only option, and the Queen Bishop will also go to e3 but can be played to g5 ( Taimanov variation).

The Queen rook will want most likely be used to support the c-file as Black will attack on the Queen side. White will have the initiative on the b-file in the end game but the weakness is centered around the c3 pawn. The pawn move to f3 comes about if the Black bishop moves to g4 or to prevent it in some cases.

After White plays 7.Bc4, Black has three main replies following the choices of either continuing with development or put pressure on d4. On 7…0-0, this keeps the development rush going, White plays Ne2 this is the main line continuation. The minor line with 7…b6 is a little slow and White can begin an attack on the Kingside with h4. 7…c5 makes a direct attack on the d4 square and white needs to support this with Ne2 followed by Be3 as Balck can build up forces on this immediately.

With the main line following 7..0-0 8.Ne2, Black needs to keep the pressure on d4 and white needs to respond according. Black has three main choices, 8…Qd7, 8…b6 or 8…Nc6. With the last one being the most energetic, White needs to keep the pressure balanced. Following 8…Nc6 9.0-0 is important 9…e5 10. Be3 Qe7 11.f3 Rd8 12.Rc1 gets us to a typical position in the grunfeld with dynamics on both sides:

White needs to be cautious of not advancing the pawn to d5 too soon as Black will attack the Bishop with …Na5 where typically the bishop goes to the more aggressive square of d5. The Bishop is on a good diagonal ( a2-g8) for a king side attack if he can muster the troops.

If Black plays 8..b6, White can immediately begin a King side assault with h4. If Black follows with Nc6 , white will play Bd5 almost immediately if he can. If Black plays the 8…Qd7 first, white has time to castle. After 8…Qd7 9.0-0 b6 then white can actually begin an assault with the e4-e5 push. With the Bishop on c4 ( a2-g8 diagonal), the troops will rally to Nf4, Qg4 h4 and h5 if allowed, making for a strong attack.

Similarities and differences within the repertoire so far:

It helps limit the breadth of opening variations to study if you can find similarities with certain groups. With the Samisch, Rubinstein and Grunfeld variations I reviewed in this past three posts, the similarities can be seen in early piece placement and d5-e4 pawn chain formations. But I have to caution about following “rote” systems of piece placements as the three variations covered are all very dynamic openings not meant for “safe” piece placement until you reach the middle game. Rather, knowing the nuances is critical and will help broaden my understanding of this complex game.

For instance, look at White’s King Bishop in all three opening variations. In the Grunfeld Exchange mainline, there is no doubt that the best placement for the King’s bishop is on c4 which is created after cxd5. This can not be achieved in either NI-Rubinstein or KID-Samish. In fact, the King’s Bishop becomes more of an awkward piece with Ne2 played early delaying the development of the king side.

Another factor to consider is when Black plays b6. The Fischer variation of the Rubinstein in the Nimzo-Indian is the most critical challenge ( in my opinion) and white needs to play energetically to save the king side. In the Grunfeld, this is more innocuous which usually allows white to grab some King side attacking initiative.

The last point I will bring up is White’s advance of the d-pawn to d5. We see this as a space grabbing move for the KID and NI variations discussed. This closes the center allowing for some careful piece maneuvering. The Black pawn on d6 could become an endgame liability so the middle game requires the right balance of piece migration and wing attacks. However, once the d-pawn is removed like in the Grunfeld, the position is not as closed. Both bishops are present for both sides. Quick precision and initiative take precedent over positional maneuvering.

I’m fired up! Next post I will look at the QGD orthodox and QGA.

Pawn formations Part 2: Rubinstein vs Nimzovich

2010-05-29T10:05:00.009-05:00

A study on the pawn formations common to the Rubinstein Variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defense:

Akiba Rubinstein was a good endgame tactician in the times of hypermodernism in chess. He approached the hypermodern defenses with a sense of winning the endgame early on in the opening. He had a solid grasp of pawn formations. He stepped up to the challenge of the potentially weakened hypermodern pawn center brought on by the likes of Nimzovich and Reti. He knew that a well supported pawn center gave him the mobility he needed while Black conceded the breaking pawn moves to “release” the latent forces. The levers and breaking moves had a tendency to create targets in the endgame ( like d6 being backward) if he created a solid support system for his central position. Thus, the Rubinstein variation was exercised by this creative tactician against the Nimzo-Indian defense.

I actually tried to find an early game of Rubinstein versus Nimzovitch playing their signature lines. The closest I could come to this was a game played in 1928 in Berlin.

The variation takes on more of a classical but by move 5, you start to see the signature moves of his variation. Perhaps he played a move order variation to throw any preparation by Nimzovitch. It’s an interesting game that has a knight sacrifice on move 36 targeting the weakened d6 square after a middle game scrum over the center and pawns.

The true Rubinstein variation begins on move 4 of the Nimo-Indian following 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3. Black has several real choices 4… Nc6, 4…d5, 4…0-0, 4…c5, 4…b6. Before I get into a cursory discussion of these branches, I want to point out the starting pawn formation:

For White, e4 is weak and supporting it will become a theme for the next several moves. White does enjoy more space to place the pieces but Black tends to get a jump on development given the minimal pawn moves. Black’s choices from above can be broken into three categories, 1) Stay ahead of development, 2) Target e4 or 3) Attack the center.

In the category of developmental lead, 4…Nc6 and 4…0-0 follow that idea. 4…Nc6 is most assertive as it prepares the advance of e5 for Black. Best for White is to support e4 directly with 5.Bd3, e5 6. Ne2 ( intent is twofold, supports knight on c3 as well as holding g3 as a place to support e4.) 6…d5 ( thrash on the center) 7.cxd5 Nxd5 8.e4 Nb6 9.d5 and you now have the d5-pawn chain with similar themes from my previous post. The exception is that White enters this with initiative. Black will have to play energetically to make the break moves of c6 or f5. Position after 9.d5:

If Black castles on move 4, White can play 5.Nf3, 5.Bd3 or 5. Ne2. I like the last two as the Nf3 move is more like the classical variation. If Ne2 is played first, the light squared Bishop can fianchetto and white can grab some advantage. Remember, a characteristic move by Rubinstein, was playing a3 at the right moment which gave him initiative. With either Bd3 or Ne2, Black will attack the center with either c5 or d5. With 5.Ne2, white can immediately put the question to the Bishop with 6.e3 and then recapture on d5 right away without worrying too much on c3. With 5.Bd3 first, Black needs to challenge the center while white sets up Ne2 before playing a3. After 5.Bd3 d5 6.Ne2 dxc4, 7.Bxc4 e5 Black plays aggressively towards the center.

White can castle and either prepare for a good IQP position if Black captures on d4 or continue with a3 followed by d5 and achieve the d5-pawn chain game again.

If Black chooses to attack the center with 4…c5 right away, we can assume that Black will postpone castling in favor of immediate action in the center. White can use the same three choices as above with similar results preparing for either an IQP (if Bd3 first)with active pieces or perhaps an opposing pawn majority on the queenside (if Ne2 first).

The IQP has the following ideas:
Themes for White: d4-d5 break, sacrifice of the isolani, outpost on e5, kingside attack.
Themes for Black: Blockading the isolani, trading pieces for a favorable endgame.

The isolani leads to lively play revolving around the d5 square. If Black can clamp down on the pawn, her positional strengths and threat of exchanges give her the advantage. If not, the threat of the d4-d5 break is ever present, and the isolani can sometimes be sacrificed to unleash the potential of White's pieces, enabling White to whip up a whirlwind attack.

The other pawn formation is one with a pawn majority on the queenside with a space advantage.

The idea is to bring the expansive pawn forward enough to occupy Black’s pieces and then swing over to a king side attack. Black’s best hope is to muster up a minority attack against the mass before White can conjure up a king side attack.

If Black chooses to attack e4 with 4…d5, White transposes to a favorable position of the Samisch variation with 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 with a nice pawn center supported by c3 and e3. The open b-file is becomes a conduit for major pieces and a freer came for white.

This leaves the Fischer variation with 4…b6 with the intent of controlling the e4 square and further support of the advance of c5. This is probably one of the more aggressive responses to the Rubinstein variation. Here move order is critical. Moving the Bishop too soon forces the knight to play to f3 instead of the thematic Nge2 because of the weakness on g2. Making 5.Nge2 the best response. Here Black MUST play Ba6 otherwise white will be able to set up a strong pawn center after 6.a3 and 7.d5

This post is already too long. Next post I will cover the Grunfeld pawn formations. Enjoy.

I’ll have a Benoni Samisch on a light Rye.

2010-05-22T09:57:00.005-05:00

Indian Pawn formations Part 1:

Playing the Queen’s Gambit as white opens the door to lots of responses from Black. The more popular defenses I encounter at the club against 1.d4 are the King’s Indian, the Benoni, Grunfeld and Nimzo-Indian. As a continuation from my last post I thought I’d split this into two parts and take a look at Benoni and King’s Indian pawn formations because I think they are related.

A look at the Pawn structure after the first couple of moves reveals the hypermodern theme of daring white an expanded pawn center. Black immediately takes a stance on slowing the advance of white’s e4 with the Nf6 move. The concept of these first few moves is all centered around control of e4 and d4. White wishes to accomplish this with pawns while Black will use indirect methods.

For the King’s Indian Defense,

both King side minor pieces are influencing the central squares while White gets a chance to get c4 d4 and e4 filled with pawns and a Nc3 for support. This opening shows up in 1922 by Reti with a Win against Samisch. Yates and Euwe popularized it as well in that decade where it showed up in Karlsbad, Leeds and Liverpool. At first, this defense was suspect because a lot of these earlier games seemed to give White a considerable amount of freedom.

I mention this historic introduction because this is Black’s first challenge in the pawn formation. How does he compensate for a slightly cramped position? If black holds back too long on either …c5 or …e5 to open the position, White will be able to enjoy the space advantage. Thus, after white grabs the center with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 Black’s first objective is to deal with the center. The two choices are then either to castle or to begin playing pawns in the center with the supporting …d6.
The Modern games have …d6 favored over 0-0 since it opens the possibilities for a Bg4 and a place for Blsck’s Q-Knight to go in support of the center and the e5 push.

After d5 or 0-0, White has several options including the Main line with 5Nf3, the Fianchetto variation 5.g3 or the one I like 5.f3, the Samisch variation.

Black Follows with 0-0 or immediately with e5 and white advances to d5. At some point the following Pawn structure is reached after about 7 moves:

Right away, if this were an endgame, White’s King is positioned to march over to the Queenside and advance the troops. The essence of this pawn formation is that of the d5-pawn chain:

Themes for White: Massive queenside space advantage, c2-c4-c5 break (optionally prepared with b2-b4), prophylaxis with g2-g4 (after f2-f3), f2-f4 break.

Themes for Black: kingside attack, f7-f5 break, g7-g5-g4 break (after f2-f3), c7-c6 break, prophylaxis with c6-c5 or c7-c5 transposing to a Full Benoni formation.

The theme is a race for a breakthrough on opposite flanks - Black must try to whip up a kingside attack before White's heavy pieces penetrate with devastating effect on the c file. Opposite side castling is common with a pawn push by white on the King side. The position was thought to strongly favour White until a seminal game (Taimanov-Najdorf 1953) where Black introduced the maneuver Rf8-f7 (After f5 is played of course), Bg7-f8 ( to keep the watch on the weak d6 base for Black), Rf7-g7 as a strong defense agaisnt the marauding white pawns and pieces. Play is much slower with tempo being of little value and featuring piece maneuvering by both sides, Black focusing on the c7-c6 break and White often trying to play on the kingside with the f4 break.

Understanding this makes looking at a variation for the Benoni a little easier. Historically, the “Sorrow Child” was named as such from the studies of a Jewish Scholar, Aaron Reinganum who suffered from depression and sought relief on the chess board. Black’s pawn on d6 becomes rather sad if not handled correctly.

The benoni was originally thought to be a newer upgrade to the King’s Indian since it advanced one of the freeing moves right away. White wants to support the e4 advance with 4.Nc3. Black will fianchetto and have similar aspirations for King side attacks, timely and freeing central pawn breaks, while avoiding cramped positions.

The move order 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e5 is the old Benoni. While the Modern plays 3…e6. With either move, White tends to play 4.Nc3 followed by 5.e4 if Black doesn’t capture d5 first. So after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nb3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6, I like to stick with the Samisch theme and look at the line with 7.f3 we now reach a similar pawn structure:

The same ideas from the d5-pawn chain are relevant here too. Black’s weakness on d6 is pronounced. The breaking move f7-f5 is important. White will continue to advance f3-f4 and push e4-e5 if needed. Castling Q-side is common for White and then after sliding the king over to the b-file, action on the c-file with the major pieces is not uncommon. Black needs to wait on the king side attack and redirect efforts to queenside.

In the Samisch, White will play the g1 knight to e2, the pawn on f3 prevents Black from intruding on g4 with a Knight or a Bishop. Bishops on e3 and d3 ( though in the benoni formation if the Bishop can go to c4 that might actually be stronger) with the Queen on d2 creating a battery on the c1-h6 diagonal are typical as this sets up a nice advance of pawns on the kingside ( h2-h4, g2-g4, h4-h5 etc)

Here is a recent game I played at the club. It’s not perfect play but you can see I was able to be flexible with the understanding of the d5-pawn chain formation and actually gained a pawn at one point. The game ended in a draw as my concentration was distracted by outside influences part way through the game.

Next post, pawn formations from the Grunfeld will be discussed along with the Nimzo-Indian. With the Black’s pawn on d5, I elected a different approach.

I hope this information is helpful considering its from the understanding of an amateur such as myself. This is how I process the information overload of too many variations. I try to find themes I can identify through the pawns.

A Historical Perspective on the study of Pawn formations

2010-05-15T14:04:00.006-05:00

In one of the comments to my last post lamenting the problems of trying to understand the openings beyond rote memorization, the concept of pawn structures came up. I find this is most essential today in navigating the waters of opening theory. In my process of discovery, I find that openings usually tend to follow a theme depending on the pawn structure. The side who doesn’t follow suit with the theme usually finds trouble early in the game. As I review the responses to 1.d4, I am trying to put into perspective how this may have evolved.

I look back in the days before Harry Nelson Pillsbury came on the scene. The romantic age of chess where swashbuckling gambits viewed pawns as more of an annoyance that gets in the way of carefully calculated sacrificial tactics. Pawn formation was not really considered since most of the games were open to allow the maximum piece play.

Howard Staunton penned The Chess Player’s Handbook in 1847. The mention of pawns is in Chapter VI under general rules. He goes on to mention that “..young players commonly overlook the pawns or deem them scarcely worthy of regard, and are amazed to learn that the combinations of these simple elements are among the most refined and arduous studies of the game.” His underscoring of the importance is critical in this handbook. He follows it with the first general advice around central pawns and cautionary advice about the struggle of maintaining both e- and d-pawns in the center. Most of the advice is given as cautionary and displays what I think is a timid approach. He emphasizes the weakness of moving the King’s knight pawn.

A few years later, at the dawn of the classical age of chess, Steinitz expand’s on Staunton’s ideas in his book, The Modern Chess Instructor. Prior to this, in 1862, at the London Congress, it was determined that when a pawn advances to the 8th rank, it no longer was held as a “dummy piece” until the right piece was captured to replace it. It was allowed to become any piece immediately. In the chapter of Relative piece values and Principles of play, he elaborates more on the importance of the central pawn phalanx. He goes on to describe a strategy for symmetrical e-pawn openings where both sides castle and how important it is to open the g-file. He also elaborates on the role of each of the pawns.

The positional ideas that Steinitz penned and later Tarrasch supported became the mainstay but many felt that chess was becoming stagnant as more and more draws were becoming commonplace at the top events. Here we saw the King pawn games move to Queen pawn positional games. Themes around isolated Queen pawns, the minority attack, the Wyvill and Karlsbad pawn formations and other closed systems were being realized and studied.

Enter, Pillsbury and Lasker at the end of the 1800’s and early 1900’s. They turned the dogmatic classical axioms upside down by attacking the Kingside with bishop sacrifices and attacking with Queens and minor pieces. They showed just how vulnerable an exposed king side could be if the defending forces were cut off by a closed pawn formation with pawns on e6 and d5. In essence, they demonstrated that positional play could account for material loss if given initiative and an exposed King.

This gave rise to the hypermodern defenses meant to thwart the Pillsbury attack and the Lasker Bishops. It evolved from the same roots of having a strong pawn center but challenged the idea of allowing the White pieces to over extend. They drew on the timid nature of Staunton’s warnings by allowing white to occupy the center with pawns. Having an indirect influence on the center showed later that when they broke through, the subtle positional elements proved important.

Nimzovich’s My System, has chapters dedicated on Pawn centers, Pawn chains, passed pawns, IQPs doubled pawns and more about pawn structure and weak squares. This was the first real manual relating positional elements with pawn structures. Weak squares created by pawn movement were first introduced by Steinitz. Nimzovitch takes it even further and talks about how to handle weaknesses created by pawns from both a defending and attacking perspective.

Later, we get Hans Kmoch’s landmark book on Pawn Power in Chess. Kmoch in 1959 builds on the same ideas of Staunton, Steinitz, Tarrasch, and Nimzovitch and breaks it down even further. He introduces terms like “lever” and Pawn cross as he dissects many variants and the interactions with each of the pieces. This is following the Modern Classical period highlighted with the Russian chess schools and the large opening theory that evolved 30 years after the hypermodern school debuted. The importance now shifts to the pieces and their interactions with the pawns.

Andy Soltis, recently wrote a book on Pawn Structure Chess and classifies the major pawn formations into 16 categories. He essays that understanding the schema of the pawn formations is the key to understanding the positional elements of the openings and prepares the player to handle subtle nuances and move order variations without having to study reams of opening lines.

In my next post, I will dig a little deeper on a few of these pawn schemas as they relate to my openings. In the meantime I suggest you look at this wiki link as it provides a nice synopsis of Andy’s ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure

Memory is the first to go.

2010-05-08T15:31:00.001-05:00

My experiment last weekend at the Mass game 60 was a bit alarming in realizing how QUICKLY I lose my memorized opening lines. Now, before you all jump on me about opening preparation and how it shouldn’t be a case of memorization and all, sit down. I realize this and part of the reason why I do the history tour and review game collections from old tournaments is to learn this game from whole games. The way I process information requires me to find neural pathways into long term memory through experiential exercises that challenge more than rote memory. Getting into the narrative story of a match, the emotional build up of the opening struggle followed with a middle game melee seems to be seeping ever so slowly in this thick skull of an old dog learning new tricks.

The problem I have is that it’s very hard to “unlearn” my old ways of learning openings via rote memorization. It’s a process I have to work on. What happens is that when I have a lapse in chess activity, the first thing that goes is the rote memorization of the openings. In particular, WHEN I PLAY WHITE 1.d4, the number of lines to stay on top of is insurmountable. How do I approach this from a practical perspective when there are so many similarities yet nuances making a Benoni like a King’s Indian except that it’s not and I am not an expert.
When I played against IM Igor Foygel, I knew it was going to be a cat and mouse game. Right on move 4 I was lost. 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3.d5 e5 was the move order for a Czech Benoni ( modern Benoni plays 3…e6). I know this now because AFTER the game I looked it up. During the game, all I could remember was that after 2…c5 White needs to advance the d-pawn to maintain the edge. That was it.

I didn’t know what followed. How do I maintain an edge with advancing the d-pawn? Building a strong pawn center but I can’t get my pawn to e4 because of his Nf6. I couldn’t recall that White’s plan is to build a center and maneuver for a king side attack while watching for Black’s breaking moves on the c- and f-files. Instead, I fell prey to creating false weaknesses and eliminating pieces in an effort to get to a playable middle game.

I played 4. dxe6 which allowed the Master to open up the f-file. During the post mortem, he asked me why I captured. I told him it was my intent to create a weakness. His words of wisdom “ Don’t create a weakness unless you can take advantage of it right away. Every Weakness is only good if you can use it.” Also, in hindsight, the choice between development versus creating weaknesses in the opening is now clear. Especially when I am taken out of “book”, basic principles should apply. Better to develop Nc3.

Here’s the game in all its ugliness.

Playing white is a problem for a patzer like me. I used to use an opening system to get by this hurdle but found it to be tiring against stronger players who know how to play sharply around them. I buckled down and decided to learn Queen’s gambits after I studied the games of Harry Nelson Pillsbury a couple years ago. But the problem with this is that in practice I have to deal with all the Indian defenses, orthodox defenses, move order variations, slav defenses and the friggin Dutch. It’s too late to switch gears before the World Open in July unless I wuss out and resort back to my London System.

The good news is that I play the Slav and after studying the New York 1924 Games, I learned the Rubinstein Variation of the Nimzo-Indian. The Kings Indian Defense of the Zurich 1953 studies have yet to make practical “head room” in my noggin. It’s overwhelming to think of all the variations I should be prepared for when I play a Queen’s pawn game. At one point or another, I “prepared” for the Dutch, Benoni, and other Indian defenses. Unforetunately, it only made it to the scratch pad memory of my internal processor. This gets reset every time I learn a new thing or take a break from “serious” play.

Igor says, “ Don’t worry about studying openings at your level. Just play chess. Look at book AFTER the game. Then you will learn.”

Yes master. Thank you Master.

The amateur’s scramble mind

2010-05-02T17:20:00.003-05:00

(Have this playing while you read this... it will make more sense)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

More than two months had passed since I really had any serious chess study. Like a lot of folks, life things took priority over my passion for this game. I knew I was in trouble when back in March, my rating was in a freefall, rapidly heading to my floor. THANK GOD for floors.

With the World Open looming in 2 months, and tied of life beginning to ebb, I thought I’d tip my toe into Caissa’s Ocean of Chess at the Mass Game 60 open tournament. Going into this event I knew I was not going to be playing my top game. This being a “quick” tournament and an All for one open section, meant some hard humbling lessons were waiting for me. I really wanted to practice controlling my thought process and went in with full intention of jotting down my ideas and thought process during the games. What ended up happening was an abomination of any real thought process. Like a vehicle that sits in the yard too long, the rust on this machine made the engine freeze.

Because life is full for me, the only time I had to prepare for the event was 2 evenings prior juggling schedules with after work appointments to take kids to and making sure everyone is happy. Add to this, a weekend at church where I had an obligation to uphold for this weekend. No problem, I was planning on a Bye for both Saturday and Sunday Morning to address this.

Let me digress a moment, more important than chess is when I make a commitment to someone or some fellowship. This was an important weekend for some of the youth at our church and I dutifully showed up for the rehearsal on Saturday… then extended myself even further and offered to accompany our youth minister with my bass guitar to augment the songs they were going to sing. This was a last minute decision three of us made and meant learning 3 songs before Sunday morning. So off I went to play chess on Saturday.

The first round, I had a confidence builder to ease me into the weekend chess event. The second round I played I was paired against IM Igor Foygel. That was a lesson … I will share in a subsequent post. Right now, I am decompressing. My last round on Saturday, I was paired against a strong class A kid. I almost got a draw but blew the position ( again, another lesson for a later post).

I rush home, pull off the web the three songs I need to learn. I had the chord charts from the team, struggled with those as my ear was hearing a different chord when I played the video of the original to try and play along with. Now, if any of you are musicians out there, repetition is a common theme. I must have played Joni Mitchell’s The Circle Game, The Beatle’s Let it be, and Leonard Cohen’s Halleluiah several times that I had this sound track for bed time.

Sunday morning came too early. I woke up, rushed out the door and headed to church with my acoustic Bass guitar. On the passenger’s seat was my chess set. First things first, there was one last practice with the team before the service. Then it was show time where we pulled it off with out a hitch. The youth loved it. We did a good service to show them how important they were to the community. My heart was full to see many smiles and hearing hope for the future of humanity.

With the many smiles, the service did go into overtime. My window was closing to make round 6 without my clock starting. I politely excused myself and made a mad dash.

Today was the first day that we hit over 80-degrees since winter. I needed to get out of church clothes and into summer chess attire. My clock had elapsed 13 minutes when I moved my black pawn to c6 to stop time. As luck has it, I was paired with a kid who took this as an opportunity to play speed chess. I rattled off an exchange C-K with my 4…Qc7 move meant for the unprepared. It served only as a speed bump.

Remember how I mentioned my intent was to focus on thought process. Enter, blunderprone post frantic weekend rush. What follows is the inner narrative stream of unconciousness:

“ Man, I can’t believe we pulled that off. I am so glad that worked out… Hallelujuh… ha ha, yeah that really went over well. I can’t see my clock, sh*t, I still have my sunglasses on. Well, I can see he moved e4, here we go ( shakes hands) sorry to make you wait ( snaps c6 and hits the clock)”

At this point I started to replace my sunglasses with my regular glasses and the kid already was making sure his clock didn’t dip below a minute. “ OK, I can see my clock now, 47 minutes… no problem, I can do this.”
We rifle through the next few moves. I am playing by memory, he is playing for speed. “ OK, I see this is going down the exchange C-K. Everything is good so far.” I get to play the Qc7 move hoping the kid slows down. NOT A CHANCE. I rattle off the next few moves and worked the time deficit down to 11 minutes. We get to a point where we both castle and I start leaving “book”.

“ OK, here we go, Positional evaluation… and go” … to fill the void, my mind does funny things. The refrain from Lenard Cohen’s song starts coming up in my head… over and over. “ … the forth the fifth, the minor fall the major lift….shut up!” I am having a hard time concentrating. “OK I see it… um… I can win a pawn in the center… Hallelujah… I said shut up… Let it be… NO damn it!” The kid missed my fourteenth move as he got up to do jumping jacks or something to take care of the ants in his pants. He comes back and asks “ Where did you move?”

OK, I wasn’t feeling particularly spiritual at that moment, so in a typical grumpy old patzer voice I chortled “ You figure it out.”

I look for a remedy to squelch the singing voices in my head. I fumble for my iPod shuffle, I get some soothing Bella Fleck and the flectones ( Nice bass work by Victor Wooten BTW) and it goes into some soothing Neko Case. I’m a pawn ahead and in my groove. Rodrigo Y Gabriella strum a nice Spanish flavored guitar instrumental as I flow through a series of exchanges. I’m down to Bishops of Opposite colors and an extra pawn, the kid extends his hand “draw?”

I grimace, “No” and continued to play now annoyed by the ants marching in this kid. Up and down, up and down. I was turning into this curmudgeon as I was surrounded by all these kids. When they here one of there “kind” announce a draw to an old fart like me, its like chumming the waters for sharks. They start circling. He did this a couple more times until I had to tell him to stop.

Cake queues up on my iPod, I just blew my chance to get two connected pawns by hastily making a capture with the wrong pawn. Time to shut the music off, I’ll take my chances with the random Leonard Cohen verses circling in my head. Instead, I hear Joni Mitchells voice singing The Circle Game… because I was thinking of circles… and how I should have done at least one tactical circle prior to this event.

I blow my chance for the win. The pawns are now even… I see a clear draw at this point with opposite colored bishops ( sigh) “ Draw?” I offer.

“No” He says smugly “ I have a clear win.”

Ok, I deserved that. He wants me to play this out. I did manage to prove my point and draw the game with this kid at 400 points lower than my rating.

So, I wasn’t quite ready to get back into the arena. I had a couple of really good lessons and that was really what I was looking for. I hope the voices in my head stop singing by the time the World Open comes around.

Evaluating Positional Evaluation

2010-04-24T21:35:00.005-05:00

I promised Andres Hortillosa I’d give a review of his book, Improve Your Chess at Any Age. I have several books of this theme, Rolf Wetzel’s book and Michael De La Maza are a couple on the “top shelf” in this theme. I am going to be brutally honest and keep this as respectful as possible. What I liked was the fact that this was a guy with a similar back ground as I in the “work” world. He has an engineering background with an eye for process controls. So I definitely liked the idea of seeing what he had to say. The problem I had with the book was that there was no clear instruction of how he applied a “six sigma” method to improvement. Instead, he approaches some key themes, gives some sage advice in the form of platitudes but then dives right into “ here are my examples”.

He does give a formula for a thought process ( slightly paraphrased):

Step 1: Initiate a broad reconnaissance of the position to gather key data elements
Step 2: Search for Specific threats
Step 3: Rank the severity of threats
Step 4: focus your response against the highest degree threat
Step 5: search for Candidate moves
Step 6: Execute the move in your head
Step 7: Conduct a post –reconnaissance in your head as if the move was made
Step 8: If a problem with 7, go back to step 5.

The key to step one is properly evaluating the position. You can read Silman, Nimzovitch, or any other Positional manuscript but inaccurately evaluating the position over the board is a show stopper. I see it in my games. Steps 2-4 again are critical areas where I need to improve. I like Heisman’s approach to looking for “ checks captures and threats”. But if you inaccurately evaluate a position in the first place, you may miss things making the rest of the steps difficult.

There is talk about his approach to doing tactics which made sense. In short, he feels its more important to understanding the setup before the light comes on and says “ Mate in such and such”. I have to agree.

Going back to my desire to apply a six sigma approach to improvement, without going into great depths of statistical methods and cpK analysis of process control charts, I decided to do an initial evaluation of my games this year focusing on my improper positional evaluation.

I need measurable metrics I can tweak that can give me some indication that the trend in my rating is within better limits instead of thrashing about. I said it before, consistency in my playing strength is what is preventing me from reach the next class level. So, I shall set this as a goal to attain.

So where are my process control charts? Here, I agree with Mr. Hortillosa. Achieving a rating on a tactical server or program is not a good indication of improving my process over the board. It’s merely an indication of my ability to solve puzzles. Mind you, there is some merit behind the puzzle solving but since I have not seen a major jump since my third circle of hell ala De La Maza’s method, I am approaching this a lot differently.

First and foremost, I need to fix my ability to evaluate my own positions. Like any process that needs fixing, first it must be assessed. I am painstakingly going through each of my most recent games and looking at the graph of positional evaluation my chess engine produces.

Let me walk you through an example of a game I played in March against an 1800 player. Here is the positional evaluation graph. It looks like Fenway park’s green monster.

NN1 V Blunder

Move 13 begins the green monster but a subtle positional error occurred on move 11.

It is Black’s move 11 (mine), I was incorrectly looking at provoking White’s d-pawn at the risk of weakening Black’s queenside and advanced to c6-c5. Thinking out loud, White’s position is freer though slightly behind developing the Queen bishop. Black’s pieces are out but the light squares are cramping the Black’s Queen Bishop. The computer points to a game where 11…h6 was played and gives Black a better game. ( 11… Rad8 was another suggestion that leads to a draw… but more on that a little later).

The position speaks to giving the light squared Bishop a little escape to keep pressure on the b1-h7 diagonal. Interesting how I was fixated on opening up the d-file. What benefit was I anticipating from this? Opening up the d-file before placing the heavy artillery behind the pieces makes no sense. I jumped the gun on this. Opening up the position gives White a strong center with a knight on d4. ( I didn’t steps 2-4 any justice)

In hindsight, weighing the positional requirements versus creating a tactical thrashing is a lesson I can walk away with. In this sense, Black’s development gives him a marginal plus but that is in contrast with White’s more open position as it is a matter of time before the Q-bishop is developed. More important for Black is to improve the position with either more room for the light squared bishop or building up the forces on the d-file ( like Rad8) BEFORE attempting to open it up.

After White exchanges 12. cxd5 Nxd5 13Nfd4 Black makes another positional gaff, 13…Bd3 shown here:

This is a weak tactical double threat against white’s rook on f1 and c4 pawn. I failed to look at White’s counter threats ( again not even considering steps 2-4) when I calculated this. White followed up with 14. Nb5 attacking my queen and Bishop and proceed to play into an exchange of 2 pieces for the rook. I underestimated ( ignored or fell blind to) the threat that Nb5 had on the position. The lesson here is to make sure I follow through evaluating my opponent’s checks captures and threats on every move. I don’t do this enough.

Lone Pine 1975: Closing the book indefinitely

2010-04-18T13:23:00.004-05:00

(Back cover)

To all my devoted followers, I wish to extend my apologies. I was hoping to get some support form the Grandmasters still alive but after several fruitless attempts that idea has left the station. I was told by Larry Evans, through a third party, to buy the book and that he was in no way interested in an interview. The past couple of months have also been a really busy period taking me away from the chess board. Without any better way of putting it, I’ve lost steam on Lone Pine 1975 and have reached an impasse.

My plate will start to clear in May, but in that time frame, I wish to focus my study efforts on preparations for the World Open. I need to scrape the rust off and get back in fighting form.

I plan on chronicling my training which will mainly include daily tactical studies. But what I really want to focus on is improving the consistency of my thought process in every aspect of the game. At my level, consistency is the key to improving my strength and that has to begin with the thought process. I find that its also a dynamic element depending on what phase of the game I am in.

I have not completely defined how I am going to go about this so stay tuned. Be sure that I will include some of the following concepts in the coming weeks:

- Evaluating thought processes in my own games
- Thinking out loud while solving puzzles
- I can’t escape history: A look at some of my openings through the eyes of history and significant games that changed the particular variation.
- Thinking about Endgames
- Mindfulness in general … techniques I wish to emplore to focus on the tournament despite life’s challenges in the background.

I hope you all understand. Perhaps After the WO, I will present closure on the Lone Pine 1975 event and finish this series.

Lone Pine 1975: Leonid Shamkovich, Careful Tactician

2010-03-22T19:42:00.002-05:00

Leonid Aleksandrovich Shamkovich was 51 at the time of Lone Pines 1975. He was born in a Jewish family in Rostov-on-Don in Russia on the first of June in 1923. Nicknamed Prince because of his aristocratic bearing and manner of speech, Mr. Shamkovich was not among the leading Soviet players who dominated the game for most of the second half of the 20th century. He was known to play with great emotion, which made his results very uneven. Still, he was good enough to win the Russian championship in 1954 and 1956 and to tie for fifth place in the 1964-65 Soviet championship. He became a grandmaster in 1965. His best victory coming at Sochi in 1967, where he tied for first place with Nikolai Krogius, Vladimir Simagin, Boris Spassky and Alexander Zaitsev.

Three Years prior to Lone Pine 1975, Shamkovich left the Soviet Union, moving to Israel along with Liberzon and Kushnir. He did not stay in Israel for long. He moved to Canada in 1973 and to the United States at the end of that year, settling in New York City. By the time of this tournament, he was still considered a citizen of Israel.

He was well versed in the art of Sacrifice. In round 6 at LP1975, Shamkovich had white against Martz Williams’ Berlin defense.

The “Berlin Wall” was favorite defense of Arthur Bisguire against the Ruy Lopez. Black played a little too passive, not following some prescribed methods by those who played it regularly. Shamkovich begins by dismantling the wall in the center. But on move 27 was the nice finish. Shamkovich offers his Queen to open up the diagonal and follows through with some real simple chess.

In round 8 as Black, we see Shamkovich play a positional game to defeat the Grandmaster from Argentina, Oscar Panno. In this English opening, White comes out a little cramped only to allow Black an active pawn center.

This allows him to advance the d-pawn all the way to the 2nd rank. Because white is placed on the defensive after this pawn, Shamkovich secures his position even more with a nice out-posted knight in the center and complete control of the d-file. He picks up material by storming the advanced rank with all his pieces. Left with isolated pawn islands and one less rook, White graciously resigns.

After LP1975, he won the 1975 Canadian Open Chess Championship. In 1976 and 77 he tied for first place in the United States Open. He continued to play through the 1990s.

Mr. Shamkovich's expertise was as an analyst and tactician. He was sought after as a coach, and worked for two world champions, Mikhail Tal and Garry Kasparov. He also wrote more than a dozen books, including ones on the Gruenfeld Defense and the Schliemann Defense, the latter a particularly tactical opening.

His Sacrifice in Chess begins, "A real sacrifice involves a radical change in the character of a game which cannot be effected without foresight, fantasy, and the willingness to risk."

Shamkovich died of complications from Parkinson's disease and cancer in his Brooklyn home on April 22, 2005.

Blundering at the 19th Annual Eastern Class Championship in Sturbridge.

2010-03-14T13:05:00.004-05:00

I thought I’d pause in the Lone Pine 1975 series to provide myself with some cathartic analysis of the three losses at my most recent tournament. To put things in perspective, I’ve been in the process of transitioning positions at my main job and started teaching part time. In addition, I have a very “exciting” home environment that keeps me up at night chasing rebellious teens. Why don’t I just put chess on a shelf? This is my outlet, where I can blow off steam. Once I enter that arena, and hit that clock, the meditative process begins and for the most part, I can put out of mind all the other things, in theory.

In practice, I have been distracted as will be seen in my game. I was walking into round 3 with a point and a half. My opponent was of equal rating but of fractional age in relation to my own. I played the White side of a QGD with the first four moves being classic 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 as we entered the three knights variation. Here my opponent plays 4…b6 an oddball in my book. I attempted to play via classic rules and exchanged first in the center creating an opportunity to play into a hopefully a minority attack. But I never got there. Asleep at the wheel, I played rote moves and opted to castle versus taking aggressive action on my opponent’s underdeveloped queenside. Then I wasted my time with pawn moves and closed myself in for my opponent to walk in with a Queen and knight. Here is that debacle:

In round four I was in a swashbuckling spirit as I was facing an opponent I often face at the club. I had a pretty good score against him and just plain old felt like taking a risk… at a tournament. I had been studying the Winawer Gambit in the Slav at a cursory level and thought “ wouldn’t it be cool to surprise Mark with this? Well, in hindsight, I was totally unprepared and only knew the first few moves and not the true spirit of the gambit. It went abysmally wrong from about move 6 until I finally threw in the towel. Here is that debacle:

In the last round, my opponent barely could see over the king. What distracted me most was this odd looking security blanket device the kid had. I should have taken a photo of it but this is what I found on the web that came close to it:

“What’s that?” said the mean looming figure from the Black pieces pointing to the crocodile shaped thing.

“A pencil case” said the heroic voice.

“No its not, it’s a crocodile!” exclaimed the bully as if to say under his breath, “ you expect THAT to protect you?”

Calmly, our small hero said, “ It’s a crocodile pencil case, sir.”

Such a device was fitting for the swamp of the Caro-Kann I fell into. I missed some really aggressive moves in the middle game and by move 26 I resigned as the crocodile was about to consume my queen.

Here is THAT debacle:

It actually was good to review these games and put the key positions in my “daily dose” study patterns. I am practicing for the World Open this year. The Part time teaching gig will reward me with the means to get there. Continuing to play even at half capacity of my full strength is better than dusting off rust a month prior to the big event. Thank god I don’t put much stock in my rating. It’s only a game. On the bright side, I played through some fog, went on an adventure and challenged a fierce little crocodile. There’s always NEXT TIME!

Lone Pine 1975: Peter Biyiasas Canadian GM turned Programmer

2010-03-09T16:44:00.004-05:00

Editor’s note: Sorry for the delay to post this. I tried to contact Peter Biyiasas personally to get some first hand accounts and his perspective from this match. Ruth Haring was generous enough to forward me his email but I seemed to hit a brick wall. I’ll keep trying to reach other former players from this match. I hope to hear from at least one.

As Canadian Champion in 1972 and 1975, had this 25 year old local master as a strong candidate for the top prize at Lone Pine 1975. He had previously won a British Columbia Open 1972 where he had a history of victories in the Vancouver area starting in 1968. 1972 seemed to be a banner year for Peter as he also won the Zonal championship in Toronto which earned him the title of IM. A couple of his other victories leading up to this event included 1st-4th (tie) at Norristown in 1973, 1st place in 1973 and 174 at the British Columbia Diamond Jubilee Open and even came in 3rd place at the Pan American Championship in 1974.

At Lone Pine in 1975, he seemed to struggle with the strong competition but still managed to finish with 6 points which earned him a prize. Here are two games to highlight his attacking style of play.

The first won him a brilliancy prize in round nine and was published in Chess Life and Review. The game shows how Peter can play an aggressive game as Black with the King’s Indian Defense. I copied Peter’s game notes as best I could. He sacrifices a knight to open up channels to the white king and two moves later offers his ROOK! This is an amazing game.

In the last round he plays a King’s Indian Attack as white against GM Damjanovic’s Sicilian Defense. The classic plan in the KIA is to first go for a central pawn push and follow up with a King side attack. Peter accomplishes both by throwing all of his king side pawns at Black despite being castled on the king side! He uses bishops instead of pawns to provide enough cover while storming the barricades.

A fierce battle evolves around the opposing kings, major pieces and bishops. At one point Black sacrifices his bishop in hopes to simplify the exchange and gain a pawn for the endgame but it back fires and he loses to a classic deflection tactic where Peter wins the queen.

After Lone Pine, Peter earned his GM title in 1978 following a couple of strong finishes where tied in New York and Buenos Aries Olympiad. He continued to play in tournaments through the late 1970’s through 1985 where he retired from competitive chess. There are notes that he was married to Ruth Haring and that they had three children. He is best remembered for his contributions to the notorious King’s Indian Attack opening system.

Peter went to work as a programmer for IBM and later set up his own software company according to Chess Ninja over at the Daily Dirt.

Lone Pine 1975: Eugenio Torre, Asia's and Philippine’s first GM

2010-02-07T16:40:00.007-05:00

Eugenio Torre, born November 4, 1951, made him 23 at Lone Pine 1975. In 1972 he won over Anatoly Karpov in Skopje, Yugoslavia. In 1974, he became Asia’s first Grandmaster, by winning the silver medal in the World Chess Olympiad held in Nice, France. To this day, he is considered strongest Grandmaster to come of the Philippines.

At LP1975, He didn’t lose any games. Drawing all but two. I would like draw attention to the round 8 game against Venezuela’s GM Pilnik. Torre with black, essays a variant of the Pirc Defense that deploys a q-side pawn push. Pilnik responds lightly to the advance at first as the White pieces attempt to counter advance in the center. The theme “ Best Defense against an attack in the center is a counter attack on the flank” makes a good generalization of this game. Black is allowed an impenetrable pawn chain on a5-b4-c3. White’s best bet is to liquidate the minor pieces and reach an endgame with a better King position. In attempting this, white chose to weaken the king side pawns but once a forced Queen exchange ensued, the advanced pawn chain was too muck for White.

GM Torre has a rich chess career following the 1970’s. Eugene Torre shot to prominence in 1976 as a possible future title challenger after winning a strong four-man tournament in Manila ahead of world champion Anatoly Karpov – thus becoming the first player to finish ahead of Karpov in a tournament since the latter became world champion. The high-point of his career came in the early 1980s when he was ranked world No.17; successfully going on to qualify to be a candidate for the world championship after tying for first with Lajos Portisch during the 1982 Toluca Interzonal.

After losing his quarter-final candidates match to Zoltan Ribli in 1983, Torre became disillusioned with chess and more or less went into semi-retirement. He went on to become a minor celebrity due to his daily one hour TV programme “Chess Today”

He shows up in the 1990’s as one of the only confidants of the recluse Bobby Fischer and even becomes Fischer’s second in preparation for the Spassky Re-match in 1992 and also was involved in 1996 when Fischer Random was launched. One anecdote during this period has it that when Torre and Fischer boarded a taxi in Buenos Aires, the driver immediately recognized Torre as a chess player. As both were about to leave the taxi, the driver, not knowing who the other distinguished passenger was, asked Torre: “Whatever happened to that crazy guy Fischer?”

Torre has been playing in several events local since 2002 after becoming National Championship ( Philippines). He’s participated in 19 consecutive Chess Olympiads playing top board until most recently with the rise of some prominent new players like Mark Paragua and Wesley So.

A comment Mr. Torre made about the one of the stars: “It’s time for the new breed of players to take over. I’m confident Mark is up to the challenge,” said Torre.

Lone Pine 1975 : Honorable Mentions: Suttles, Yanofsky and Parr

2010-01-24T18:24:00.007-05:00

First my apologies for not keeping up but I’m also hitting a busy season as I picked up a part time teaching gig ( non-chess).

Before I start in on the top tier finishers I thought it would be worth mentioning a couple Canadian GMs and unknown Australian who had some good games in this event.

First up is Duncan Suttles, age 29 at the event. He was born in San Francisco but his family moved to Vancouver when he was child. He was a bit of a teen-age prodigy in Canada playing at a national master strength. In the early 1960’s he breaks into the Canadian scene winning the British Columbian Championship in 1963 at age 17 and then again 1966. He was playing at GM strength by 1968 but due to Cold War politics, he was denied the title due to a technicality. Because he played too many games that got published, several prominent European players complained of his “Ugly” games. He finally was titled GM in 1972 following his performance at the San Antonio Tournament where he scored a ½ point against Tigran Petrosian. Leading up to Lone Pine 1975, he won a couple of Canadian championships.

The game I would like to draw your attention to in this event happens in round 8 as white against Samuel Reshevsky. Reshevksy’s Performance at Lone Pine was a little passed his prime. The game opens up as a clash between English opening and Modern defense.

The fight for control of d5 and e5 is paramount. In the book, David Levy opines that Suttle’s style was developed by years of playing in the old style of King’s Gambits and that he had to learn how to Walk his King before he learned to walk. ( Thus the “ugly” duckling name his games often received under critical European eyes). In this case it was effective with f4 advanced. Reshevsky tries to gain control of some dark squares for his Queen and tosses a pawn away. This only invites Duncan for an Early Queen exchange. One last ditch effort to gain tempo in the endgame has Black tossing another pawn on the fire. By then, White had enough of an advantage to bring home the point.

With 5 ½ points he finishes in the top 20 of this strong event. His biggest legacy to chess is his contributions to the Modern Defense. Funny, how what was once considered “Ugly” is now a looked up to as a contribution to opening theory. He played into the early 1980’s when he dropped out of competition and started up a Software Company focused on the Stock Market ( Microstat Development) and then ventured into other areas such as Grandmaster Technologies. Now he’s president of Magnetar Games, a software based company focused on Internet Gaming community. http://www.magnetargames.com/Company/Team.htm

Abraham Yanofsky, 50 year old at the event, had the honor of being Canada’s first titled GM in 1964. He beat Botvinnik back in 1946 as well as other prominent players of the time like Sammy Reshevsky and Larry Evans. He was never a professional Player, rather he practiced law in Winnepeg and even was Mayor of a suburb. This Canadian Lawyer-politician did have an interesting first round victory over Hungarian GM, Istvan Csom. Though he submitted this game with light annotation for a brilliancy prize for the round, it was eclipsed by the upset with Kushnir over Evans.

In the Game, Yanofsky opens up the king side in this Sicilian and keeps pressure on Csom’s king to remain in the center. Next he opens up the center and holds onto a Bishop pair for the endgame. Like the practicing lawyer, he builds his case with more evidence in the form of pawns and rests the defense with a closing statement of two connected passed pawns on the 5th and 6th rank.

Yanofsky Earned the international Arbiter title in 1977. He played in his last Canadian Championship in 1986 at the age of 61 which qualified him for another interzonal appearance ( since 1946 he’s represented Canada several times) but ceded to a younger player. He passed in 2000 but since then, an annual Memorial Tournament has been held in Winnipeg to honor his contributions.

Lastly, a 29 year old Australian, David Parr is brought to your attention. The eldest son of Frank Parr, another prominent Chess Player from a chess playing family ( His brother Peter, was also of Master Strength). He played internationally for England for a few years and spent some time in Australia playing in Championships. However, he withdrew from one event in 1974 complaining “his opponents were so weak that he could not concentrate”.

Looking for strong competition, David found it at Lone Pine. In this second round victory against GM Forintos, we see an aggressive style of play for this untitled player. Popularized by Fischer at the time, the Austrian Attack was in style against the Pirc. The idea is to get quick development and control of e5. Black is allowed e5 and then Parr weakens his king side even more with a risky advance f4-f5. Black gains control of the now semi-open g-file and dark squares. Parr looks for his only hope in simplification and seizes a opportunity to exchange queens and pieces to benefit a playable endgame. Using pins and initiative, he walks his king up to a favorable position to pick up the h-pawn. The outside passer was all he needed and he gets the point.

He dies the same year as his father in 2003. There is a David Parr memorial in Australia conducted by the Correspondence Chess League of Australia in his honor.

Lone Pine 1975: Kushnir, Tarjan and Denker, Noteworthy IM’s on the second shelf

2010-01-10T12:03:00.006-05:00

As I dig deeper into this tournament, more interesting nuggets turn up. This post will focus on a few IM’s who had a strong finish in this event.

Alla Kushnir

Alla was the only woman IM at Lone Pines. She came over from Israel with her other Ex-Russian compatriots, Vladimir Liberzon and Leonid Shamkovich. She was the second ranking woman chess player in the world but in order to expedite her move to Israel in 1974 from the Soviet Union, she had to agree not to enter the current cycle for Woman’s World Championship. She had been the previous challenger three times against Nona Gaprindashvili. She was awarded the WIM title in 1962 and a year after Lone Pines, she earned her WGM title.

Born August 11,1941 in Moscow, this 33 year old held her ground against GM’s at Lone Pine. She Drew against GM’s Reshevsky, Csom and Robatsch and beat GM Bilek of Hungary and most notably, the upset in round one against Larry Evans. This must have been the fire lit to drive him to place second in this event.

In the game that was highlighted in the July 1975 issue of Chess Life and Review ( her photo is courtesy of that periodical), She is shown playing a very aggressive game against a Benoni. She is able to get a mobile pawn march on the e- and f- files. Larry tries to liquidate the center with a rook for a Bishop but it’s too late.

She finished Lone Pine 1975 with 5 points following 3 wins ( Silman was her third), 4 draws and only 3 loses. I could not find much else on Alla following the 70’s. She is still listed on the FIDE website with a rating of 2430 but has been inactive since as indicated by the sparce records. If anybody knows a brief epilog of where she is now, feel free to leave me a message.

James Tarjan:

James Tarjan was 23 at the time of Lon Pines and a native Californian. Five years before this event, he was selected to American Team for the World Student Olympiad. In 1974 he earned the IM title because of his strong performance in these international junior events.
At Lone Pines, he also had a strong performance. His only loss came at the mercy of Walter Browne. He beat Rhodes and Ervin, two of the USA masters. He drew the rest of his games with 5 GMs and 2 IM’s . One of those GM’s was Gligoric and I want to highlight this game.

IN round two, Tarjan played the Grunfeld as Black against Gligoric’s 1.d4. The veteran player took him down an old variation popular in Boleslavsky’s day. The game is an imbalance bishop pair versus Bishop and knight with odds favored for the bishop pair in the endgame. Gliga attempts an early queen exchange but Tarjan is allowed a strong centralized knight before White can deploy the second bishop. It’s a nice defensive endgame and worth going over.

Following Lone Pines, Tarjan wins the next event, the Western Futurity-Qualifying Tournament against a roster very similar to the masters and IMs of Lone Pine and one year after Lone Pine 1975, he received his GM title. Tarjan continues to play in several US championships in the 1970-80’s but never was quite able to pull it off. One of his strongest finishes was in Passadena 1978 where he finished in 2nd place. This was a Zonal Qualifier and he went on to play in the 1979 Riga Interzonal World Championship Cycle. His last competitive tournament was in 1984 at the U.S. Championship at Berkley where he tied for third place.

Arnold Denker:

At 61 at Lone Pine 1975, this veteran player still had some kick in him. What else can one expect from a former boxer and once rival to Samual Reshevsky and Reubin Fine? He was a U.S. Champion in 1944 and held on to it until Sammy took it back in 1946.
He became an IM in 1950 ( the first year the title was awarded by FIDE).

At Lone Pine 1975, he beats three GM’s, Rossetto, Pilnik, and Damjanovic of his four victories. He draws GM Bilek of his 3 Draws. I am disappointed in the tournament book not having any of his games annotated as the win against Rossetto is quite spectacular. In round eight, he plays a Modern Defense as Black and fights for early control of f5. This leaves a hole in the center for White to take advantage of and Denker walks right into a knight fork and loses his rook. Denker holds his ground as White waltzes into troubled waters on the King side. With a Knight and Rook, Denker threatens an unstoppable CHECKMATE! It was a beautiful win. I’m surprised it didn’t get any more recognition other than this humble blog.

He’s famous for going on and become an important chess organizer, serving on the board of American Chess Foundation, The USCF and the U.S. Chess Trust. The Denker Tournament of High School Champions is in his honor. He earned an honorary GM title in 1982, inducted into the Chess Hall of Fame in 1992, and in 2004 was proclaimed the Dean of American Chess. He died in 2005 after a brief illness. In my opinion, he is a role model for all of us chess enthusiasts.

Lone Pine 1975: Rohde, Silman and Weinstein : Upsets from the third shelf

2010-01-01T09:59:00.010-05:00

The Lone Pine 1975 had three major groups. The top shelf included the list of Grandmasters who I’ll be chronicling in the coming posts. The next layer includes the international masters ( Ratings below 2500 and above 2300). My next post will include a few upsets from this category. What I’d like to cover in this post are few noteworthy games from the bottom that resulted in upsets from up and comers.
Michael Rohde:

First up, is a very young 15 year old Michael Rohde. By the way, that is how it is spelled in the book and to spell it “Rhode” is not correct. Michael, born August 26, 1959, received the masters title at the tender age of 13 and in 1975 won the National Scholastic Champions Junior High School Champion. Even though he finished dead last at Lone Pine 1975, his attacking style was in noticeable form as he won a Brilliancy prize for the game listed here against International Master, John Grefe.

He earned the IM title in 1976 and later became a GM in 1988. He went on to win the brilliancy prize in three consecutive U.S. Chess Championships from 1986-1988. Some of his strongest finishes includes first place in the 1991 U.S. Open, tied for first at the World Open, and winning the NY state Championship and a few other titles. He took a break from chess to attend Law school

Jeremy Silman:

Honored to be included at such strong event, a young Texan, Jeremy Silman was just 20 years old. He was listed as having a rating of 2258 ( the lowest in the event) in 1975. It is unclear when he first became a master, though in an interview by Robert Brunnemer (http://www.chessvideos.tv/article-Robofriven-interviews-Jeremy-Silman-5.php) he mentions being at master strength at the age of 16. In this upset over IM Dumitru Ghizdavu, he plays a brilliant c3 Sicillian and handles an IQP with ease. It’s a beautiful battle of the center as Silman demonstrates how to strike on two weaknesses.

Silman goes on to get his IM title in 1988 but leading up to that, he had several notable events under his belt, like winning the U.S. Open in 1981 as well as the National and American opens in that decade. He is a popular author of several chess books geared for the amateur class player. I know I have a few in my library. He was also a Chess consultant for the 2001 movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Norman Weinstein:

Norman Weinstein was rated 2372 in 1975 at Lone Pine and is listed as a Master for that event though some sources indicate he earned the IM title in 1973 following becoming the U.S. Champion in 1973. The game highlighted below is his upset over GM Leonid Shamkovich where he plays an older Levenfish Variation against the Dragon Sicilian. He demonstrates the advantage of initiative combined with opposite sides castling can have with a marauding pawn raid.

He left chess to become an investment banker at Banker’s Trust. In 1990 he convinced the firm to put an ad in Chess life reaching out to hire masters and Grandmaster. Max Dlugy was one of the GM’s to come on board. Weinstein’s name may ring an alarming bell for some as it is the same name associated with another chess player, Raymond Weinstein, who went to prison after killing an 83-year old. No worries, there was no relation to our current player turned banker/recruiter.

The Journey Begins: Lone Pine Masters-Plus Tournament of 1975

2009-12-27T14:17:00.009-05:00

The time machine has landed me in a small little remote town in the eastern part of California near the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The year is 1975 and 44 chess players are arriving in this town that is about 10 blocks long and three blocks wide. All the games were played at the Lone Pine Town Hall, which Mr. Statham had built for the sole purpose of the anual event.

Back in 1965, a wealthy engineer and inventor named Louis D. Statham, sold his home in Los Angeles to none other than Hugh Hefner to settle into a quieter location in Lone Pine. Statham was a correspondence player and had a modest Class A rating. He loved chess so much that he wanted some chess players around Lone Pine. So he set up a series of masters tournaments footing the entire bill!

He started this series in 1971 with GM Isaac Kashdan as Arbiter. Between 1971-1974 the participants were mostly American and Canadian with the exception of a couple Eastern Europeans traveling abroad.

In 1975, he cast the net further almost on a dare. “ How many GM’s could we bring to Lone Pine if we tried?” Lone Pine was building a reputation as one of the best known sites in the U.S. He raised the prized fund to $12,500 ( about double the prize money in European events) and offered to pay the travel expenses guaranteed against any prize money. To be fair, the local GM’s were given $600 in lieu of travel expenses.

That is why, in 1975, this turned out to be the strongest tournament of the year. Twenty-two GM’s came to Lone Pine. From the Philippines, came Eugene Torre a freshly minted GM. From Argentina, Miquel Quinterros arrived ( though he’d been in the Philippines prior). Israel brought Vladimir Liberon, Leonid Shamkovich who were both ex-Russians immigrating. They traveled with Alla Kushnir, the only female IM.

From Europe came nine GMs. Veterans of Lone Pine were Svetozar Gligoric from Yugoslavia (a good cross over from Zurich 1953) and Florrin Gheorghiu from Romania . Mata Damjanovic had to play two games in advance in a tournament in Birmingham, England because of a conflicting dates. From Hungary came, Isvtan Bilek, Istvan Csom and Gyoso Forintos. Iceland brought Gudmundur Sigurjonsson. Karl Robatsch came from Austria. Lothar Schmid of West Germany, was the chief arbiter of the Fischer-Spassky match in Iceland.

From Canada came Duncan Suttles and Abe Yanofsky. Oscar Panno and Hector Rosseto came from Argentina. Herman Pilnik came from Vennuzuela. From the U.S came Walter Borwne, Sam Reshevsky ( another veteran from Zurich 1953), Larry Evans and Pal Benko.
There were 11 International masters and 11 national masters. Included in this bunch were Jeremy Silman at 20 and Michael Rhodes at the tender age of 15. Arnold Denker and Arthur Drave were the elder statesmen at 61 and 65 respectively.

With 44 chessplayers in this sleepy little town, several small hotels were filled and chessplayers were seen all over in coffee shops, tennis courts and even getting hair cuts.

It wasn’t without effort that Statham tried to bring in former world champions from the soviet union. Three Czechoslovakians accepted only later to have the federation decline their invites. The speculation was that they were forced to follow the lead of the soviet’s boycott to this event because of the battles that came about from Fischer-Karpov match during that period.

So what is in store you may ask? I plan on following the games and biographies of the Grandmasters. I will most likely have a post or two on some of the more famous national/international masters as they also provided some wonderful upsets.

The tournament book I will reference is “Grandmaster Chess: The book of the Louis D. Statham Lone Pine Masters-Plus Tournament, 1975” by GM Isaac Kashdan and the staff of the California Chess Reporter. The games are lightly annotated and I have no PGN of the entire event to work from. If any of my readers can locate the raw games from this event and provide a link I’d be much obliged. I found one reference to a PGN of a Lone Pine 1975 but it turned out to be the wrong event. Beware of the file 1975LP-PG.zip as it’s not the collection of games I am looking for though labeled as Lone Pine 1975. This turned out to be a different event of that year.

Back in 1975, chess informants were starting to become popular for opening preparation. Thus, Lone Pine 1975 happens the days before the generation of overly prepared openings through computer databases. Old fashioned preparation of reading books and building on the reputations of your predecessors was the mainstay here. We’ll be seeing a lot of Sicilians and English openings as they were the style of the day.

Gligoric was quoted as saying ( in the Chess Life and Review, July 1975) “ Lone Pine 1975 brought together an unusual gathering of people, some of whom had not met for ten or even twenty years. Naturally enough, the past was partly rebornat some of these chess boards, too.” He was referencing that many of the lines and systems which were popular in his youth were revived at Lone Pine. “At those rare moments when your commentator watches the ‘strange’ positions from the Two Knights Defense, Marshall Attack or Meran Defense, he cannot escape the queer, tender feeling of being refreshed by an old idea”

I’ll be entering all these games by hand into chess base, a labor of love. I will be providing commentary, descriptive annotations by the players and checking the variations with computer.

I hope you enjoy.

Twas the Knight before Checkmate

2009-12-24T11:06:00.002-05:00

Twas the knight before Checkmate and across the board
There were advancing pawns like a marauding hoard
The queen said “ What pests!”
While the King replied “ I cannot rest”
When in his finachetto
The Bishop said “ I’ll send them back to their ghetto.”
And started to devise a plan that was grand
But with who might be partner for the stand
On Flank, on file and even if Fritzed-in
The pawns were well supported and rather well fixed-in
When in from the dark
The knight decided to hark
“ I will take fight with the lead thug,
I'll take down this wall of bugs”
“It’s suicide” the queen did shout.
The knight ignored them all and jumped about.
Down went the pawn in one blow indeed
The bishop joined in by the death of the steed
The queen saw an opening and took her stance.
“Check!” she said with mixed feelings and chance
The opposing King retreated at a hasty rate
The next move that came was a quick check mate.
All through the land, the feelings were not light
For all the king's peoples were saved by this brave and good Knight!

Merry Chessmas to all my readers

I’ll be resuming the Magical History tour sometime after Christmas with an intro to the Lone Pines tournament.

Taking out my frustrations over the board

2009-12-13T10:50:00.006-05:00

I was matched with yet another Class A player ( near expert strength). I knew I was going to have black against him and found a game in my database where we had played before. It was an exchange C-K and I like the line with 5…Qc7 as it sets up some interesting dynamics. Last time we played I missed a nice little tactical maneuver after he played 6Qb3, Nxd4 can be played and creates some interesting dynamics. He chose to play 6.Ne2.

(60) (Class A 1900+) - Duval,G [Blunderprone]
Holiday Swiss,

B13: Caro-Kann: Exchange Variation and Panov-Botvinnik Attack 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.c3 Qc7 6.Ne2 Nf6 7.Bf4 e5

I was inspired to play this line as I had seen this before in study exchange variation C-K games with this line. 8.dxe5 Nxe5 9.0–0 Bd6 Black gets a very active position with the e5 advance. The game is no longer a closed position. 10.Bb5+ Bd7 11.Bxd7+ Qxd7 12.Nd4 0–0 13.Nd2

I played 13...Nd3 First, I want to let you know I had a horrible work day. I couldn't resist this hole and I really wanted to mess someone up after the bad day. [Safer would have been to play13...Rfe8 14.N2f3=] 14.Bxd6= Qxd6 15.Qc2 (position)

15…Nxf2 OK, in hindsight I should have played more conservative. But playing against a strong player gave me a chance to take some chances with very little to lose. The exchange I envisioned gave me a Rook and Pawn for the two pieces at the very least. At best I had a mate threat or a rook for a knight. So I decided to mix it up.

This did leave me with an IQP that was hard to defend in the middle game which I didn't take into consideration and should have. This was a lesson learned, and a new position for my daily training. [¹15...Qa6!?= is interesting] 16.Rxf2 [16.Nf5 Qb6 17.Rxf2 Ng4 18.Ne7+ Kh8±] 16...Ng4 17.N2f3 Nxf2 18.Qxf2 Rfe8 19.Re1 [19.Nf5 Qd7 20.N3d4 f6±] 19...Qf6 [19...Rxe1+ 20.Qxe1 Qd7 21.Qd2²] 20.Qg3 [20.Rf1 Rad8±] 20...Re4 [20...Rxe1+ 21.Qxe1 h6 22.Nh4] 21.Nd2 [¹21.Rf1 Rf4 22.Qh3²]
(position)
21...Rxd4? I saw a rook for two pawns and a knight. Again, in an IQP I should have played more conservatively but for some reason, this was more satisfying than winning. Creating an imbalanced game against a strong player and lasting to almost an endgame was rewarding in some sense. [¹21...Rxe1+ would allow Black to play on 22.Qxe1 Qb6] 22.cxd4+- Qxd4+ 23.Qf2 Qxb2 24.Nb3 [24.Qxa7 Rf8 (24...Rxa7?? 25.Re8#+-) 25.Nb3 h6±] 24...Qxf2+ [ I could have kept the queen on the board. 24...Qa3 25.Rd1±] 25.Kxf2 Kf8 26.Rc1 Re8 27.Rc5 Re5 28.Nd4 Ke8 29.Nb5 a6 [29...Rf5+ 30.Ke2 Rh5 31.h3±] 30.Nd6++- Kd7 31.Nxb7 f6 [31...Re6 32.Rc2 Rb6 33.Nc5+ Ke7 34.Ke3+-] 32.Rc2 Ke7 [32...f5 33.Nc5+ Kd6 34.Nxa6+-] 33.Nc5 [33.Rc7+!? seems even better 33...Kf8+-] 33...a5 34.Nd3 I totally went out to lunch on this move. I recall that 2 connected passed pawns in some positions are worth a rook. But they have to be on the 5th and 6th rank. On 6th and 7th you even have winning chances. I played the fool here and played 34… Ke6?? simply worsens the situation 35.Nxe5 fxe5 36.Ke3 d4 37.Ke4 h6 38.Rc4 g6 39.Ra4 0–1

No guts no glory. I took my lumps, satisfied that I didn’t play a timid game. I was clouded with a frustrating day at work and put on the fog lights of an attacking and imbalanced game of a chess instead. In this case, I veered off the road with little damage. But I did get a rush of adrenaline and sharpened my axe a little more.

Inglorious Blunders ( at the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial)

2009-12-05T18:17:00.010-05:00

ACIS Update:

Do check out Harvey as he has now started a Google group dedicated to the cause which will allow a better exchange of ideas and resources as we can up/down load files and share common useful links etc.

Tourney report:

I like the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial held every Fall in Massachusetts as it’s a recognized Heritage event and has been held annually for over 25 years! It’s a Grand Prix event as well but since I am not a master, that has little importance for me ( this year). The format has changed over the years. This year, it was kept to a 1 day event with four rounds of a G60’s. This meant some serious yet fast action was about to happen on this Sunday following our American Thanksgiving.

We were blessed with team members from the famous Boston Blitz featuring, GM Eugene Perelshteyn and IM’s David Vigorito who tied for first place in the open section. FM Dennis Shmelov and Ilya Krasik, also Boston Blitz players, tied for 3rd and 4th place.

There were four sections for a modest turn out of 53 players in all three sections. I played in the Under 1900 section below is my round for round account of my games.

Round one loss to a Class A player:

I played the back side to an English opening that was more like a Reti when I responded 1…c6. I should have known better as I studied Reti in the New York 1924 series. I might have faired better had I played a line with Bf5 which Lasker used regularly to avoid the cramped complications I fell into. I really need to work on the transpositions. Two major issues came up in this came. The first, looking at the position below on Black’s move 10.

I wanted to advance c5 and keep the bishop as it was my only one “out of the gate”. But I ended up with a dumb position hemming in that bishop altogether. The chess engine suggests moving the knight to f8 as this will be handy later. I think even better is to exchange on d2. Where Black’s game is cramped and I want to lock the pawns on dark squares, having a pair of knights will be better. Plus White’s dark squared Bishop gets hemmed in now.

The second issue was a bad plan to remove White’s light squared bishop. A couple moves later, I created a battery with a queen and Bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal and went after White’s Bg2. Somewhere I had a notion that getting rid of the bishop would weaken White’s king position. True, in some cases with finachetto’s this is a good plan. The exception I overlooked was that it traded Black’s Active Bishop for White’s more passive one.

Round 2 win against a Class A player:

I played the White side against a Nimzo-Indian defense. I had been studying the Rubinstein variation since my New York 1924 studies and liked the games in Zurich 1953 with Taimanov playing some interesting ideas against Averbahk. Now my problem is that I play 6Nge2 in the more traditional sense of the Rubenstein meant to keep the q-side pawns from being messed up. The idea is to follow-up with f3 and e3-e4 especially once Black exchanges the bishop. By Zurich 1953, that line was replaced with a more aggressive 6Nf3 made popular after New york 1924 and became the main line. The idea is to allow the double c-pawn and get the bishops on both diagonals ( a1-h8 and b2-h7) in preparation for opening the center. I didn’t do that… was happy to settle with remember to play the bishop to D3 first and then said Nge2 must come next.

Regardless of this, I did manage a playable middle game as I had the opportunity to test Black’s ability to play an IQP. I sort of know how to attack and/or defend such a position. I recall my lessons’ Jorge Sammour-Hasbun in telling me the fundamental is that the endgame is more favorable for the player who doesn’t own the IQP. Exchanges then become favorable and the owner should avoid it. Black didn’t do much to prevent this in the game.

Blocking the square in front of the IQP also keeps it from advancing and getting traded to equalize or worse… become a decoy as a king side attack forms. The defender will place the rooks on both adjacent files ( as did my opponent in the game and I got my knight in front of the pawn. He missed a knight forking tactic on the other weakness on d6.

Round 3 win ( I should have lost) against a Class C player

You know, I was feeling pretty damn cocky. Round one wasn’t a total loss and I just beat a class A player. When this opponent played an Advanced variation, I decided on the spot to try something I had never tried before and played 3..c5. I read through this variation back in a day ( never played it)…but felt I could “think through this” OTB. By move 11 I was humbled with a Greek gift on h7:

Sucker punched, I hobbled my king in the corner for a few moves, desperately pulling in reinforcements in when I could. Then I had a chance 11 moves later and played this:

I got damn lucky. Note to self, don’t pick a tournament to “explore” a new line I was meaning to look into when I got a round to it.

Round 4 victory against a Class A player ( cinching the Class prize):

My opponent’s third round game was the last to finish and he ended up losing in a time scramble when he thought he had set his clock to correctly allow the 5 second delay. He was rattled as he challenged my 1d4 witrh 1..c5. “Crap, a Benoni”, I thought. This time, because of my training positions, I made sure I had some from previous “lessons” and managed to survive the opening without any traps. It did give Black a slight advantage in piece mobility. I decided to handle the game as a hypermodern positioning my bishops as Black expanded in the center with pawns. Black’s d-pawn became backward and I was given a chance to exchange pieces and win the pawn.

In turn Black had the bishop pair in an open position giving me a pawn advantage if I made it to the end game. To my surprise, Black exchanges one of his bishops for my knight on b5. This gave me more mobility and then he totally hung a piece. He clearly was still rattled from the previous match.

I finished with 3 points to clear the under 1750 class prize and did a happy dance with my BIG money winnings of $75.

Lessons I learned:
1) Learn your openings enough to get to a middle game you can play.
2) Recognizing and being comfortable with certain middle game themes like IQP and minority attacks can be beneficial if I come out of the opening a little less than equal.
3) Don’t try anything new.

Part 4: Putting it all together

2009-12-02T20:55:00.004-05:00

But first things first , the A.C.I.S. Update:

I’ve added a couple new comers to the list on the side. Please take some time to welcome these folks.

Wrimle to the fray. He’s working on board vision. Make sure you check out his simple declaration.

The Scheming Mind also is new and seeks to transition from correspondence chess to OTB and outlines a nice plan that fits in with a busy person’s lifestyle of work and School.

Tempo waxes philosophically over middle game to end game transitions and breaks it down in his mind’s eye.

Steve channels Sherlock Holmes and solves a mystery of an extra pawn.

Linux Guy posted some games from his recent “lessons” at the American Open .These are some fine games and if you scroll down, he offers a contrasting picture of two types of players at this event Pitting MDLM against Positional players who’ve taken the time to study Z53. ( LG, I fit in both categories!)

“Pumpkin Chunkin” rook ( since it’s close to T-day), has some more of his nifty GIF animations on some memory chunks of a Scotch game. I have to learn that.

It’s nice to see the new comers. I try to keep the door wide open for all who seek to declare an improvement plan and dare blog about. In return, we will off support and encouragement in your journey. Huzzah!

Positive Reinforcement:

So I have to report that since I made my 440 positions, I’ve played several games this month. Seven of these games were against Class A players. In the last week, I’ve managed to defeat 3 class A players in a row. I’ve been playing once a week at the chess club and on Sunday, November 29th, I played at one of my favorite events, The Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial. I finished with 3 wins out of 4 games earning the U1750 cash prize, but my wife needn’t worry about me quitting my day job…just yet.

The Jury is still out on whether my new training regimen had a great deal to do with it or am I just rebounding from my really bad slump and this is just the laws of averages working here. Nonetheless, it’s the most positive reinforcement I’ve had to date on this process of improvement. Earlier in the month, my USCF rating was at an abysmal ( for me) 1618. After Sunday and after picking up some points at the close of the Club’s monthly event, I jumped up to 1723. My all time highest is 1755 I had earlier in the year. So this is where my cautious optimism comes from. Earlier in the year, I had a goal of breaking 1800 by the end of the year. I just might have a chance of doing that depending on how I end December with at the club. I’ll be happy meeting my 1755 high.

Putting it in motion

Of the 440 positions, I had a set of 55 positions form my most recent games I went over daily. At first it took me over an hour. By the event, I had this down under a half hour and hitting them at 100%. I also took the 50 positions created from my repertoire database out lined in part 3 and reviewed them 3 times ( every other day before the event). One day, I did all 105 and plowed through another 20 positions of the games studies. In particular, I couldn’t resist going over the games of Hastings 1895 in preparation of the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial. It just seemed like the thing to do.

I am now in the process of weeding out my “daily dose” and moving the easier ones into the “once a week” review group. I am adding the recent games and pulling in some positional studies from the Zurich 1953. This is a work in progress as I fine tune this.

I will do some opening maintenance and pull some new positions to study as I broaden my scope. These will be reviewed 2 or 3 times a week. I am shooting for a complete Brain Burner once a month with the entire set but this will take time. As I add new positions to the “daily dose” I have to build up my experience and keep the time to under an hour.

So my formula is to have 50-ish daily, 50-ish opening rep training every other day on top of the daily dose. Once a week add 20 or more of the positional studies from the master game collections and eventually build of a rep of 50 of these to do once a week. The goal is to get the easier ones moved to the monthly brain burner.

In the near future, I will be posting a couple of the recent games as some were pretty spectacular with inglorious blunders on both sides. For instance, I almost lost one game against a lower rated player because I got cocky and played a variation of a defense I never played before! Next thing I knew I was subjected to a Greek gift and almost mated.

In general, where I won my games was all in tactics. Tactics I recognized over the board because I was comfortable enough knowing the positions.

One last tip I will throw out there is that I use my training database in 3D format so I can visualize the moves better. That was one thing I learned back when I was a Knight Errant. CT-ART was all 2D and I had the hardest time transposing to OTB.

Happy Thanksgiving : A.C.I.S. Update

2009-11-26T09:39:00.002-05:00

HI everyone. In America, today is holiday that is meant to remind us of all the things to be grateful for. I hope all of you enjoy this day as well as my readers outside the USA.

I am grateful for the energy the A.C.I.S. of Caissa movement is experiencing.

Loomis is chugging along a la MDLM, brushing off the CT-ART rust. He’s such a classic.

Bannat is trying real hard to break the USCF 1200 barrier. Wish this improver some luck.

Chess Tiger has an interesting game where he plays a Colle-Zuckertort against some 1…b5 line. He’s looking for some feedback. Get you annotation pens out.

Chunky rook has amazing animated chess graphics ( How does he do it) and bemoans an inglorious blunder.

Harvey is new to the quest and seems to be trying out my database suggestions as he files off some rough edges. Please, pay him a visit and welcome him.

Steve Eddins psoted his first training position created in Chess base ( using his Chess Imager utility to display the position on his blog)

Wahreit gets all philosophical. Let him know why imporoving is a quest for you. And then enjoy the Cake he serves up J

I’ve had a couple others on the close fringes of joining “the movement” asking about what plans and others just don’t want to advertise and that’s fine too.

As for me, I am gearing up for the Harry Nelson Pillsbury memorial. MY database already grew to 440 positions. I have gone through the first 60 positions every day with increasing results. I plan on having a daily hit list and a weekly mash with more problems and a once a month brain burner where I go through the whole set. I also took the advice from one of my readers to start using category names so people can find this under ACIS. I went back only as far as the Zurich series and created category tags for that series as well.

Hope the tryptophan is off set by coffee. Set up the pieces!

Part 3: Finding training patterns in your Repertoire

2009-11-21T14:50:00.006-05:00

In part 1 I proclaimed my new training regimen which basically consists of creating a personalized set of positions from my own games, repertoire and study material.

In Part 2 I showed you how I used chess base to create my own training positions to have a set of tactical and positional puzzles themed from my own games.

In this entry I will show you how I develop a repertoire data base and how I use this to create study positions.

But first a brief update on the growing A.C.I.S of Caissa movement:

Following an action from the playbook of Loomis, I plan on keeping the ACIS of Caaissa updates limited to THIS blog and not on my mirrored site at the greater community at Chess.com. I like the smaller closer circle of friends here as it tends to promote a more supportive environment. The "how to" stuff will get forward to chess.com.

Unlike the brutish Knight’s errant DLM movement of the mid ‘00’s, A.C.I.S. of Caissa is proving to be more accessible to the “common folk” as the final circles of the MDLM method was just unreachable if you work, have a family and want to practice good hygiene. If the truth be known, most of the knights errant had modified the MDLM method to smaller circles and approached it in a more realistic manner.

Loomis has joined in this universalistic approach and proclaims to be Baaaack.

Steve (learn’s chess) Eddins is firing up the blog to declare his mission and thoughts.

Chunky Rook has fired off a series of gif patterns worth checking out on his blog

Linuxguy reviews a game he played on FICS and shows appreciation to having studied Zurich 1953

And finally, Chess tiger was lulled into this quest with this line:

What pulled my attention is that one may choose his or her own study plan. So
one isn't pushed towards Rapid Chess Improvement of Michael De La Maza or How to Reassess Your Chess from Jeremy Silman or Novice Nook written by Dan Heisman orInternational Chess School (ICS) or Lev Albert's Chess Course or ... . This is a good thing because for all we know, all combined may bring a bigger outcome chess wise then following only one of these courses.

Building a repertoire database.

I use chess base for a lot of reasons. One of the things I’ve done was create a blunder-rep database with games centered around my openings I play. First, I pull in games that I have studied from the classic tournaments that are in any shape or form close to what I play in my chess games.

Hastings 1895, London 1924 and Zurich 1953 is not enough resources for what I am looking for. There are several ways to approach this. You can set up a position using chessbase and use the search online tool to pull games from their huge inventory. I find this tedious as I haven’t found a clean way to import the large volume of games as a result of this method. The best I was able to achieve was dumping them all into one huge game file or saving each one individually. I will use this method to find key players ( grandmasters) who play this variation but not as a means to build the volume I seek for the purpose of building a training database.

I wanted a quicker method to build the base up. I use google to search for PGN or CBH data bases of specific variations. There are several websites that fill this gap. Chessgames.com will allow a search for the position and provide a collection of games to download as PGN. Chessopolis (http://www.chessopolis.com/openings.htm) is another resource I use frequently and they actually have CBH files that can import directly to Chess base. There are plenty more if you search.

The trouble with “canned” data sets from some of these places is the quality of games are littered with amateur games. But my philosophy at this stage in my improvement path is that I can still learn from these amateurs.

Panning for gold.

Once you have a repertoire database built up, the next step is to use the search capability of chess base to find positions to study.

Finding Traps in the opening to avoid or inflict:

The first thing I do is to find the opening traps I want to avoid. I will set the search to find the games that end in 15 moves or less where the side I would most likely play loses.

I will create training positions described in my previous post for each of the unique wins. Some are duplicates and worth skipping over. What you get is a clear pattern of what not to play in certain lines. Optionally, you could run the engine on each of these to get some annotations and ideas what to play. I merely reference my books and make a quick note where to improve and what not to play. The opening tactical trap becomes the positional study that I solve for the aggressor. Then I look at the notes in the game centered around the failing position. This is where having an amateur database comes in handy as you will more likely have a lot of examples to chose from.

On the flip side, from the same repertoire base I will change the search to games where my side wins and repeat the process. The result will build up tactical positions found in the openings of my games that I can inflict if my opponent doesn’t play exactly in this line. Positional themes start to come about from these and I get a better understanding of the opening.

Finding Mating themes:

Another search I will conduct in the bluder-rep is to find those games that have ended definitively with a check mate. To weed out the previous search I set the move order to a range greater than 15 to include the long games. I go through the same process of looking at wins for both sides to see the kind of attacks typical from both perspectives. I then create training positions from these making notes of the type of attack as a memory marker for the pattern.

For added measure I use the same filter but instead of definitive mates, I search for results being my side to win. This will include winning endgame positions to come about in my games with higher probability.

Middle game positions:

There’s no way around this but to review games against masters who play the same openings in your repertoire. I am building on this with my tournament games studies and include several positions from each of the highlighted games.

So far I have just over 100 positions as I build upon this. I think it’s a good start. I’d like to build this to at least 500 by Spring, but I don’t want to get stuck in the process before using it. 100 problems to start with will be a good litmus for the upcoming Pillsbury Memorial here at the end of the month.

D.I.Y. ( Do It Yourself) CT-ART

2009-11-14T10:20:00.007-05:00

In my last post, a movement was started in terms of Adult Chess Improvement Seekers. The movement has morphed from the ashes of the old Knights Errant to a new form that is calling itself A.C.I.S ( pronounced as Axis) of Caissa. A few bloggers have thrown their hats in to the ring to claim “membership” in this method-agnostic quest to improve ones play that is individually tailored to suit your ability and keep you seeking. The demographic seems to be mostly adult amateur players stuck in a non-master level ELO rating. The only real requirement is that you establish a method you can sign up for and blog about your journey. More details will follow as this movement is still on the ground floor. If you identify with this and feel like becoming a part of a growing community, state your quest on your blog and give us a glimpse of your chosen method by dropping a comment with a link. I will add you to a growing link list. I ask you do the same. ( The link list will be on my blunderprone.blogspot.com home and not necessarilly on my mirrored site on chess.com)

Here are a few ACIS of Caissa members to consider to date ( note:If I left you out, it was entirely unintentional) :

Wang : States his claim and starts talking

Whareit is ROCKING the world with his claim ( and nice Eddie Van Halen clip)

ChunkyRook : stakes a very well thoguht out claim on "yet another improvement post"

LinuxGuy is foucsing on endgames and developing calculation skills

Continuation of my Quest:

I mentioned in my last post that I am looking at creating my own pattern training database so I can do a “circles” method training. This will consist of a mix of positions from my own games, reference games in my repertoire database and positions from my games studies. This week I will talk about the mechanics of creating training positions using Chessbase. Next time I will talk about building a reference/repertoire database and how to I plan to use it to create training positions for my “BP-ART”.

Choosing games and first entry into the database:

An integral part of my plan involves playing games on a regular basis. I can play on ICC, Chess.com or other online servers, but I am mainly going to focus harvesting positions form serious OTB games played under arbitration of a tournament or club event that gets rated. Going over your very own wins and losses is a very important aspect of training. I have a database of my games dating back a few years. I have decided to select only the games where I changed my white repertoire in 2008 on forward as it is most pertinent to my immediate improvement.

How am I coming up with positions in my own games? Some are rather obvious. Taking time to go over the game with my opponent after a match provides the first line of input. I am practicing to improve my annotations during this phase as my thinking as well as my opponent’s is very fresh and provides valuable insight in certain positions.

I start by entering the games in Chessbase, I will start with self annotations based on the post mortem analysis. ( see picture below). I double click the position to annotate and enter the text. If I want to add text before the move, I “right click” and select Add text before. This may seem basic to most my readers but for others just navigating around CB tools, I hope this helps.

After I enter my self annotations and commentary, I then use a chess Engine like Fritz or Rybka to run the full analysis. I make sure I select “save old annotations” so not to over write my original mark up. I also use the “replace” otherwise I end up with all kinds of extra games in the database.

Finding Positions for training.

After the analysis, typically a critical position comes out. Often the post mortem has a critical position I want to recall. The resulting analysis from the chess engine will also typically pop out a few blunder checks. If the game was tight, I look at the various evaluations and look for when the equal sign starts to shift in the other direction and look at that position for clues.

I will also check to see how far down the line we went in an opening variation. I may create a position from this discovery if I feel a need to improve that aspect of the game.

The Ideal game will have a training position for the opening, middle game and endgame. In reality, I have games that were clearly decided in the opening stage. Not much else to learn in the crash and burn that followed unless a good defensive maneuver was passed.

Making Training positions:

First thing I do is create a new database specifically for training positions as I use the games database to harvest positions. This is an important step to really get the CT-ART like action. From the games database, in a selected position from one of the games, I then use the right mouse button selected over the move. I select over the “Special annotation” and it opens another drop down list. From there I select “Training annotation”

A box pops up and you can enter any text you wish. The score is usually automatically set for 10 points. Often I have a position that branches into a better variation. When that happens, the list of moves will include it. The mainline ( the bad move I made) is automatically set at a score of 10. To make the winning variation a the correct choice in training, I select the top move and demerit the score to 0 and the winning variation I increase to 10.

Now, the other thing I will do is delete moves prior and after that critical position. This helps for the focus. You can do this easily with Right Mouse Button , scroll over Delete and select from the list of options. Then I do a “save as” and select the training data base to stor the position as it will keep the whole game intact in my games database so I can go back for future reference.

A dialog box will open asking for game information, Typically this has been filled during the games entry phase. What I would like to suggest is in the “annotators” tab, you enter a “head line”. It’s no coincidence that my sample position is against none other than Rolf Wetzell, author of the book “Become Master at any age”. This is my modern version of doing flash cards. Setting the headline in the annotator’s index allows it to appear in the headline. Don’t forget to save.

Next time I will continue this series with how to build a repertoire to add opening positions to the training database.

I hope you find this helpful as some of my readers were asking about building their own training database. Again, this is only one aspect of my new regimen. I have just begun to enter positions and almost have 50 positions set up from my own games. My goal is to get to about 500 positions in my database with a mix from my own games, my tailored opening repertoire and of course the magical history tour positions that are most pertinent to my games.